


Open Road

by Twin_Feathers



Series: Open Road Verse [1]
Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Bikers, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, Beating, Blackmail, Blow Jobs, Bottom Jensen, Cage Fights, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Discussion of Abortion, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fainting, Gang Violence, Gun Violence, Hospitals, Hurt Jensen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Mpreg, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jealousy, Kidnapping, M/M, Manhandling, Minor Character Death, Motorcycles, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Older Jared, Panic Attacks, Pool Sex, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Jared, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Jared, Rimming, Rough Sex, Shooting, Shooting Range, Shy Jensen, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smoking, Student Jensen, Tattoos, Top Jared, Violence, Weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-16 19:17:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 229,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4637088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twin_Feathers/pseuds/Twin_Feathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen is a young Harvard med student with a bright future ahead of him and Jared is the hot-headed member of the renowned biker gang 'Black Legion'. When their two worlds collide and their lives become intertwined, will they both survive with their hearts intact?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is intended to be the first part of a novel-length J2 AU Verse. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and this story is in no way or form related to the actors' personal lives. Not making money with any of this :)  
> Warnings: Basically it's all in the tags. There will be loads of swearing and violence and graphic sexual content. Please also keep in mind that this will eventually turn into mpreg!

**Open Road  
** **Chapter 1**

"Remind me why we’re here again?“ Tom asked for what must have been the thousandth time as they weaved their way through the crowd at the 42nd annual Grind'n'Gear Biker Show in South Boston.

People were streaming in from all sides of the exhibit hall, most of them male and in their late fifties, wearing stereotypical biker boots, leather jackets and sporting ridiculous amounts of facial hair.

There was a rock performance on stage and the music was loud enough to wake the dead, drowning out the steady rumble of voices and the screeching of chairs against the linoleum floor.

Customized motorcycles of all shapes and sizes were displayed on platforms and in glass cubicles, some of them suspended from the ceiling and Jensen didn't even know where to look first.

His whole body was thrumming with excitement as he breathed in the mixed scents of petrol and hot rubber that lingered in the air.

“Seriously, Jensen, what the hell are we doing here?” Tom repeated as he eyed the skimpy looking girl that was busy straddling a red chopper in front of them.

“Don't be such a prude,” Jensen rolled his eyes and pulled a sketchbook from the back of his jeans. “I told you I needed inspiration for my new—”

“—art project,” Tom finished, voice dripping with annoyance. “Yeah I know. Question is why a Harvard med student needs to do an art project in the first place. I mean isn't it enough that you’re some kind of child prodigy? Do you have to be Vince Van Gogh, too?”

Jensen snorted. “I’m not as much of a freak as you make me out to be, you know?”

So maybe his IQ was slightly above average and maybe he had skipped a grade or two in high school and graduated at the sweet age of sixteen, but honestly, Jensen had never thought of himself as being all that special.

At his inner core, he was just an average Joe kind of guy from Dallas with a sharp sense of humor and a heart as big as Texas.

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Einstein. Do I really need to remind you about the time you calculated the square sum of our bathroom tiles because you were bored in the shower?”

“So what?” Jensen huffed, eyes never leaving the motorcycle in front of him as he continued to sketch a draft into his booklet. “It’s basic mathematics. Anybody can do that.”

“It was a freaking mosaic, dude,” Tom insisted, shaking his head as if he still couldn’t believe how Jensen had pulled that little trick off. “You ended up with a ten digit number.”

Jensen laughed at the memory. “And you ended up spending half the night counting tiles because you wouldn’t believe it was correct.”

“Shut up,” Tom groused good-naturedly. “I’m still convinced that you cheated on that one. Maybe you used an app on your phone or a calculator, I don’t know. But you must have had _something_ —”

“Guess you’ll never know,” Jensen winked at him before flicking his sketchbook closed, seemingly satisfied with the drawing he had made.

Tom snatched the booklet from his grasp before he could do anything to prevent it.

"Hey!" Jensen exclaimed, trying to retrieve the leather-bound book from his friend’s fingers, but it was already too late and Tom had opened it.

"God, I hate you," his friend sighed, eyes roaming over the painfully realistic sketch of the chopper Jensen had drawn in crosshatched pencil strokes, so accurate that it was practically jumping off the paper. "This is freaking fantastic. Is there anything you are not good at?”

Jensen felt his heart stagger in his chest at the compliment. He swallowed, tongue peeking out to run over dry lips.

"Firearms," he answered honestly before retrieving the booklet back from Tom's fingers. "My dad took me to the shooting range when I was fifteen. I nearly shot my own kneecap off. Didn't hit the target once."

He wasn't particularly fond of that memory or anything, but sometimes it was necessary to remind his friends that he was just a regular person with faults and weaknesses just like everyone else. That being said, he hoped that shooting someone in the chest wasn't going to be a necessary skill for him in the near future or you know,  _ever_ , because hurting somebody on purpose, blasting a bullet into a walking and talking human being? Yeah, not something he even wanted to be good at.

Tom frowned at him in surprise, probably not having expected an answer to his question.

Jensen shrugged. "Can we move on now? Or do I need to list a couple of other things I suck at? Because I can guarantee you, there's quite a few of 'em."

"Fine," Tom relented as he picked up his pace. 

They passed by a biker who could have easily been their grandfather, rocking a pair of tightly fitted leather jeans and aviator glasses.

Jensen had to give the man credit for having the courage to wear an outfit like that in public, especially considering he was nearing his nineties and barely standing upright.

“Do you even realize how out of place we look?” Tom asked under his breath as if the sight of the old man had suddenly reminded him of his own appearance.

Jensen couldn't deny it.

They certainly stood out from the rest of the crowd.

Tom was wearing a pair of designer Jeans and a dark blue V-neck, completing the poster image of the typical teacher’s pet with a yellow Polo sweater that was draped casually over his shoulders.

Jensen had at least been wise enough to put on a pair of ripped jeans and a plain gray T-shirt, figuring that he would need some casual attire if he went to a Motorcycle Show.

But his gold-brown hair was too styled and his fingernails were too clean and his features were just a little too pretty to blend in with the rest of the crowd. And then there was also their obvious lack of knowledge in all things related to bikes while everybody else around them was sprouting stories and enthusiasm.

Jensen sighed, feeling several pairs of eyes on him as he moved further into the crowd. "Relax. It's not like there is a dress code or something."

Except that there kind of was.

Apparently leather was the way to go.

“I bet half of these guys have seen the insides of a prison cell before,” Tom muttered with a brooding expression on his face and Jensen rolled his eyes at the blatant jaundice in his friend's tone as he strolled over to the array of helmets that were displayed in a showcase. “Give me another year or two and I might be the one bailing their asses out of jail.”

The burly looking vendor of the booth shot Tom an undeniable glower through the tinted glass of his Aviators and Jensen quickly dropped the studded leather belt he had been inspecting and turned to leave with an apologetic smile before the guy decided to kick Tom's ass.

"What the hell, man?" he hissed as soon as they were out of earshot. "You can't just run your mouth like that in front of a guy that's five times your size. What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with _me_? I wasn't the one with the brilliant idea to stick our necks out for some stupid art project!"

"Nobody forced you to tag along!" Jensen shot back with a scowl.

In fact, he remembered trying to talk Tom out of accompanying him to the show out of fear that his friend would freak out. And now look where that got him.

“Oh and just so you know, wearing a leather jacket doesn't automatically make you a criminal. Just like wearing a polo shirt, apparently, doesn’t make you any smarter. So how about you lose the attitude before one of your future clients decides to beat it out of you, huh?”

Tom looked taken back for a second, but he recovered quickly. "Gee...you don’t have to be an ass about it. Don't know why that project means so much to you, anyway."

Jensen bit his lower lip and let out a slow breath.

He hadn't told anybody that he had signed up for the graphic artwork competition in New Haven. But if his plan worked out accordingly, Jensen would add the project outcomes to his portfolio and send it to the School of Art at Yale University.

He had been playing with the thought of applying for a different study program for a while now and this project would finally make it possible.

Because as much as Jensen loved his medicine major, he just couldn't picture himself as a doctor.

Deep down inside he had just always craved the serenity that flooded him whenever he wrapped his fingers around a pencil.

Art was the thing that made him whole- the thing that made him _happy_. And Jensen figured that was a pretty solid basis to build his future on.

"Look, it just does, okay?" he brushed Tom's question off, before redirecting his attention to the booth at the far end of the exhibition hall, where a large crowd of people had gathered. "Let's see what the commotion's all about and then we can go, okay? I can come here again tomorrow and do this by myself. No need for you to stick your neck out for my stupid art project."

So maybe he could be a little bitchy, too, sometimes.

More proof to the point that he was only human.

Tom grimaced at getting his earlier words thrown back at his face. "I didn't mean it like that."

Jensen sighed, knowing he was being unfair.

Tom didn't know how important this project was to him. He really couldn't be blamed for being suspicious of Jensen's unreasonable overnight enthusiasm for motorcycles. "Let's just get this over with and get home, alright?"

Jensen was starting to have doubts about finding what he was looking for, anyways.

And of course, call it Murphy's law or whatever, the second Jensen started to lose hope, was the moment his eyes fell onto a sign reading 'Black Legion Customs' in intricate bold letters and the mother of all motorcycles showcased in flashing headlights on a rotating platform below.

And Jensen couldn't say why, but deep down inside he knew, he _knew_ that this bike right in front of him and everything it entailed was going to be his golden entrance ticket to Art School.

What he didn't know, however, was that the first time he laid eyes on that vehicle and tentatively l tried out the words 'Black Legion' on his tongue was going to change his life forever.

"Hey man, are you okay?" Tom’s voice ripped him out of his thoughts and it was only then that Jensen realized he'd be frozen in place.

"This is it," he mumbled, legs moving forward as if he was somehow magically drawn in by the sleek curves of the Harley's black iron armor and the extended handlebars in front of him.

"This is what?" Tom frowned, obviously not getting Jensen's excitement.

"My project,” Jensen muttered in a faraway voice, eyes glinting with awe as he let them glide over the exposed tank, fenders and six-piped power engine.

The bike looked like it was turned inside-out, stripped to the bone and laid bare for everyone to see. Engraved in the center of the silver fuel tank was an emblem of a black phoenix with spread wings and a large tail of fanned feathers.

The letters 'Black Legion' were intertwined with the phoenix wings, completing the design and Jensen had never wanted to run his fingers over anything more in his life.

"Like what you see?" a voice drawled out from somewhere close by and Jensen's head snapped up to look into the most gorgeous pair of hazel eyes he'd ever seen.

His mouth opened in response and Jensen found himself speechless, words crumbling like ash on his tongue.

 _Hell yes_ , he liked what he saw.

The tall, broad-shouldered guy in front of him was the fucking incarnation of every wet dream or dirty thought Jensen had ever had.

Thick brunette hair framing a gorgeous face with eyes bright enough to light up the whole room.

Miles of tan skin stretching tauntingly over sculpted muscles and black ink covering practically every inch of flesh that wasn't hidden by the grease-stained wife beater he wore.

Jensen gulped, mouth going dry as his eyes traced the intricate ink pattern that ran across the guy’s arms and vanished beneath the hem of his shirt, possibly spreading further down across his chest and around the curve of his broad shoulders.

Damn, the guy was _hot_.

Jensen had seen plenty of tattoos before in his life, a good share of them even today, but nothing could even begin to compare to the elaborate artwork that was displayed on the man in front of him.

“Cat’s got your tongue, hot stuff? You plannin’ on buying or what?" Jensen had been so busy dissecting the tattoos that the sound of the guy’s gruff voice startled him a little.

“Depends…” he gave back once he had gathered enough working brain cells to form the words.

“On the price?” Tall-and-gorgeous hazarded with a cocky grin on his lips and Jensen almost groaned at the sight, imagining how soft they would feel to the touch, how much he’d like to dig his teeth into that pouty mouth.

“On what you’re selling,” Jensen corrected without missing a beat. Because if that motorcycle came in a package deal Jensen would take up a fucking loan to pay for it, no questions asked.

The guy smirked, dimples on full display as he rounded the bike and came to a hold before him.

“Name’s Jared,” he said, holding out a hand and Jensen a jolt of electricity shoot up his entire arm when their palms met in a firm shake.

“Jensen,” he gave back in an uncharacteristically small voice, lashes fluttering as he looked up to meet the tall man’s eyes.

It wasn't like he was shy or anything, far from it.

Jensen’s never had problems meeting new people, but there was just something undeniably intimidating about Jared, not so much in the way he towered over Jensen, practically dwarfing him, but rather in the way that he was stunningly beautiful. 

“So,” Jared took a step forward, running a hand through the thick curls of brunette hair. “What brings a guy like you to a place like this, Jensen?”

Something stirred deep inside of him at the way Jared said his name, at the deep rumble and tiniest bit of Texan in the guy’s voice.

“He’s doing an art project,” Tom answered for him, effectively breaking the moment and Jensen could have hit his friend over the head for butting into the conversation. “And we were just on our way out.”

Jensen cut a look at his friend in warning, but Tom’s eyes never left Jared’s.

That little shit.

“Your friend doesn’t look like he’s planning on leaving,” Jared cast a glance back at Jensen as if to gauge his reaction. “Maybe you should go ahead without him. Exit’s right around the corner.”

Before Jensen got the chance to respond, a somewhat older looking guy appeared behind Jared with a brooding expression on his face.

“Jay, a second?”

“Can’t it wait, Jeff? I’m in the middle of something,” Jared said without even glancing back at the older man, his eyes still fixated on Jensen.

Jeff’s expression went from mildly annoyed to pissed in a second flat.

He dug out a set of keys from the pocket of his leather jacket and tossed them at Jared, who snatched them mid-air without even looking.

“Chad’s in the ICU at Saint Andrews. Figured you’d wanna get a chance to see him ‘for they wheel him off to surgery, but if you’re too busy charming your way into the kid’s pants I’ll just tell him you said hi.”

“What?” Jared’s voice rose up in tone and volume at the news, his face falling and Jensen felt oddly detached from it all- like a silent spectator caught in the middle of something he didn’t understand. 

“The fuck happened? Is he okay?”

“Highsided into traffic trying to do a wheelie on the highway.”

Jensen had no clue what that meant, but it sure didn’t sound good.

Jared’s reaction confirmed it. Blood was rapidly draining from his face as he took in Jeff’s words.

“Fucking idiot,” he pressed out under his breath, before grabbing the worn black leather jacket from the backrest of his chair and throwing it on. Jared turned to leave and Jensen felt a pang of disappointment at the way the dark-haired stranger had all but forgotten about his presence, not even offering a word of goodbye.

It was completely unreasonable given that he and Jared had only known each other for a second and the guy had just been told one of his friends was in the hospital.

But that didn’t change the fact that Jensen felt like a little kid who had been given the shiniest, greatest toy in the world, only to have it taken away again the next second.

Before he knew what he was doing, Jensen had started after Jared, shoving and pushing his way through the crowd to catch up with the taller man.

“Jensen, stop. Where are you going?” Tom’s voice rang out from somewhere behind him, but Jensen didn’t glance back, couldn’t afford to take his eyes off of Jared for even just a second out of fear that he would lose him in the crowd.

Picking up his pace, Jensen managed to catch up with Jared outside the convention hall, seconds after the other man had stormed out through one of the back exits.

They were in some sort of parking lot, probably only accessible for exhibitors and Jared crossed over to an old ape hanger without wasting time.

“Wait!” Jensen yelled, voice bouncing off the outside walls of the building and Jared’s head snapped up from dash panel in surprise. “Take me with you.”

Jared opened his mouth, closed it again, Adam's apple bobbing. He looked taken aback by Jensen’s words. “The hell are you talking about? I barely know you. Just… get back inside, enjoy the show.”

Jensen took a few steps closer. “Look, I know this sounds crazy, but maybe I can help you… I’m a med student in my fifth year. Chances are, you’re gonna show up at St. Andrews and they won’t give you squat on your friend’s condition. I could negotiate for you, check his vitals and translate whatever medical terms the doctors are gonna throw around with.”

Jared looked skeptical.

“Why? What's in it for you?”

Jensen honestly didn’t know.

Rationally, he was aware that he shouldn’t be doing this. That he shouldn’t be begging some random stranger with a devil-may-care attitude and a pretty face to take him out for a spin on the back of his motorcycle.

But there was something else deep inside him, something much more instinctual, that told him to trust this guy with the soulful look and dimpled smile, something that told him not to let this intriguing stranger slip through his grasp.

“I don't know. It just feels right.”

He licked his lower lip, eyes wandering over the black phoenix that was stitched into Jared’s leather jacket. It was the same emblem he had seen on the Harley. The same one that had also been on the backside of Jeff’s jacket, spelling the words 'Black Legion'.

It wasn’t the name of their store, Jensen realized.

It was the name of their syndicate -their gang.

There was a moment of tense silence.

Then Jared jammed the keys in the ignition and reached back to pat the back of the seat. “Hop on before I rethink this.”

Jensen quickly settled on the seat behind him, heart threatening to beat right out of his chest as he awkwardly shifted around on the smooth leather, trying to find a good position.

“You’ve never been on a bike before, have you?” Jared asked and Jensen felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment.

Jared cursed low under his breath, taking his silence for the answer it was. “Scoot forward, arms around my waist and feet on the rear set.”

Jensen did as he was told, hesitantly snaking his arms around Jared’s middle and moving forward until Jared’s broad back was pressed against his chest and Jensen could feel the other man’s heartbeat thrumming against his palms.

“Hold on tight. Ride's gonna be fast and dirty.”

"No helmets?" Jensen felt stupid for asking, but if he was gonna do this, he would have liked an illusion of safety, at the very least.

Jared reached back to pull Jensen closer with a sharp tug on his leg.

"No helmets," he confirmed in a dark voice, leaning back against Jensen's chest and pressing their bodies together. "Like I said, you better hold on for dear life."

If Jensen hadn’t been scared shitless at the prospect of racing off with the wayward stranger in front of him, he might have actually enjoyed the way Jared’s firm ass was pressed against his groin and the way his ripped muscles felt against his sweaty palms. 

The engine howled to life with a flick of Jared’s wrist and Jensen had about a flash second of time to lock his arms in place before the bike pulled away in a spray of gravel and dust, racing down the road.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you're enjoying the story! Reviews make me happy, so please don't hesitate to share your thoughts with me <3


	2. Chapter 2

** **

** **

**Open Road**  
**Chapter 2**  
  
If somebody had walked up to Jared that morning and told him that he would be speeding down the highway with the hottest guy in existence glued to his freaking back just a few hours from then, he would have probably told them to fuck off.  
  
But there was no denying the toned chest that was pressed against his spine or the lean set of arms that was wrapped around his middle and if Jared took his curves a little sharper than usually, then that had absolutely nothing to do with the way Jensen’s fingers dug tighter into his stomach or with the way the guy’s breath hitched against the column of his throat at every twist and turn of tires.  
  
They made it to Saint Andrews in record time - quite possibly because Jared broke every speed limit known to man - and Jensen didn’t even wait for Jared to come to a full halt before he scrambled off the seat, nearly stumbling over his own feet in his haste to get away.  
  
Jared cut the engine, frowning slightly when he noticed the unhealthy pallor of Jensen’s skin and the way his left arm hovered protectively over his stomach.  
  
Jensen’s cheeks were flushed from exertion, his pupils blown wide with adrenaline and his hair was a tangled mess, dirty-blond strands sticking out in every possible direction.  
  
He looked disheveled and yet still unnaturally beautiful in his gray shirt and ripped jeans, dust of freckles standing out starkly against the white complexion of his skin.  
  
“You alright there, princess?” Jared teased lightly, only to have all traces of humor erased from his face when Jensen doubled over with an involuntary groan and started heaving onto the sidewalk.  
  
“Shit," Jared was off his bike the next second, placing a steady hand on Jensen’s quivering back as the young man continued to throw up the meager contents of his stomach.

"Woah, take it easy,” Jared soothed, rubbing circles against the guy's spine in what was meant to be a comforting gesture.

He cursed under his breath, knowing he should have gone easier on Jensen, considering that it had been his first time on a bike.  
  
Getting light-headed or dizzy was par for the course on the first ride and Jared should have known better than to mess around on the streets with a newbie in the back.  
  
“You okay?” he asked after a few seconds when Jensen wiped his mouth with the back of his shaking hand.  
  
Jared helped him up and held him steady when he swayed, arms tightening instinctively around the guy's trim waist as his feet staggered with dizziness. “Easy, I got you."  
  
"’M sorry,” Jensen muttered dejectedly, eyes downcast as if to beseech the ground to open up beneath his feet and swallow him whole. “I don’t know what brought this on.”  
  
“Not your fault,” Jared said, placing his hand on Jensen’s shoulder, thumb skirting up the side of his neck in a soothing gesture. “Happens to a lot of people on their first ride. Must be something about the adrenaline rush."  
  
“Epinephrine,” Jensen corrected quietly, eyes closing for a second as he allowed himself to lean into Jared’s touch.

Jared swallowed, trying hard not to be affected by the way the kid practically melted into his palm.  
  
“Come again?”  
  
“It’s a stress hormone secreted by your adrenal glands,” Jensen explained, slowly regaining some of the natural color of his skin. “Sets your body in a fight-or-flight kinda mood when faced with high stimulants like danger or stress.”  
  
Jared looked at him for a moment, blinking down at these gorgeous jade colored eyes and wondering what other knowledge rested hidden beneath their surface.  
  
Jensen seemed to have taken his silence for a bad sign, because the next second he withdrew from Jared’s touch, looking even more flustered than before. “God that… that came out all wrong. It’s not like I’m trying to be a smartass or anything. I'm not actually that big of a freak, I just—“  
  
“Dude," Jared cut him off with a soft shake of his head. "Shut up, okay? I'm not judging.“  
  
Jared had already figured the kid was pretty damn smart when he had sauntered up to their booth at the **Grind'N'Gear**  and proclaimed he was a Harvard student.  
  
It wasn't like Jared was an expert in academic education or anything, hell, he was a fucking high school dropout, had never really gotten the appeal behind sitting in a cramped classroom and burying his nose in schoolwork, but there was nothing wrong with being intelligent and Jensen sure as hell shouldn't feel the need to apologize for it.

Honestly, the fact that Jensen had lucked out in the brain department on top of being unnaturally beautiful? It didn't do anything to quench the ever-growing pool of desire in Jared’s chest.  
  
In fact, the thought of Jensen in a school uniform and glasses had him half-hard and squirming in two seconds flat.  
  
"Yo, Jaybird!" Jared's head whirled around at the sound of Chris' voice echoing through the parking lot. "Gonna stand there and drool all over yourself for much longer or are you actually gonna get your lazy ass into that hospital?”  
  
The tall, burly looking man was standing in front of Saint Andrew's entrance hall, long auburn hair falling over his shoulders in the usual tangled mess. He was wearing biker boots and black baggy pants, the custom leather jacket sitting tight around his muscled shoulders and completing the urban cowboy image.  
  
In his left hand, he held the glowing butt of a cigarette, fingers shaking visibly as he lifted it to his lips.  
  
Something clenched in Jared's chest at the sight.  
  
Chris never lost his shit over anything. The guy was a freaking bastion of calm, always level-headed and zen, even in the worst kind of situations and the fact that he smelled like a freaking chimney when Jared pulled him in for a one-sided hug, wasn't a good sign.  
  
The fact that Chris' fingers curled tightly into Jared's jacket and held on for a split second too long before they broke apart was even worse.  
  
"That bad?" Jared asked in a demure tone, squeezing the back of Chris' neck in brotherly comfort. It was something that went without saying, when one of them wavered, the other was there to lend support, giving and drawing strength from each other in equal measures.

Chris sniffed, shrugging his shoulders, never one to openly show emotion, but the furrowed lines on his forehead and the dark shadows beneath his eyes spoke volumes about Chad's condition.  
  
"How the fuck would I know? It's not like these bigot bible freaks tell us anything," Chris huffed with a shake of his head, referring to the sisters that worked at the catholic hospital. He looked up at the sky, letting out a humorless snort, before stomping out his cigarette on the sidewalk. "Fuckers won't even tell us if he's gonna make it through the night."  
  
"Have you had a chance to talk to the head physician yet?" Jensen cut in from the side and Jared's heart sank a little with guilt for having all but forgotten to introduce him to Chris.  
  
Chris completely ignored Jensen’s question, barely sparing him a glance before resettling his gaze on Jared. “The fuck did you bring the fish for? As if we don't have enough on our plate already?"  
  
“You have a problem with me being here?” Jensen asked, a thread of steel running through his words. Jared was intrigued by the way the blond man stood up for himself, by how he wouldn't just stand by and take whatever bullshit Chris was dishing out. “How about you grow a pair and say it to my face?”  
  
Jared saw the exact second when the switch was flicked in Chris’ head and mild annoyance turned into ice-cold anger, dark eyes promising unleashed fury as he squared his shoulders and made an intimidating step towards Jensen. "Are you talking to me, boy?"  
  
Without thinking, Jared shoved his friend back by the shoulders, pushing himself between Jensen and the potential threat. Because while it was pretty obvious that Jensen didn't need anybody to fight his battles for him, Jared still felt an irrational surge of protectiveness towards the younger man and wouldn't stand by to watch him get hurt.  
  
“Tone it down,” he growled out, sending Chris a warning glower. “Kid's got connections. He’s our only shot at finding out more about Chad’s condition, so you get a fucking grip, alright?"” 

There was no way Chris could miss the unspoken warning that underlined his words.

 _Don't mess with him, he's off limits._  
  
“Whatever you fucking say,” Chris spat out, clenching his jaw and turning back towards the entrance of the hospital. “Wouldn’t wanna scare off your flavor of the week.”  
  
Jared let out a slow breath as he watched Chris’ retreating form and then closed his eyes in frustration.  
  
“He isn’t usually that much of an asshole, you know? What happened to Chad kinda messed with his head.”  
  
“I get it,” Jensen shrugged the rude behavior off, but his eyes were fixated on the ground and there was a tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there before.

Jared couldn’t be sure, but from the brooding expression on the guy’s face, he figured something was still bothering him.   
  
“You okay to go in?” he asked after a moment of silence.  
  
Jensen seemed startled out of his thoughts. “Yeah, listen, I’m gonna need you to give me the rundown on Chad. Hair color, eyes, skin color, scars if he has any, maybe tattoos… Oh and his full name.”  
  
“Why?” Jared looked puzzled. The patient record should have already been filled out by one of the nurses upon Chad’s arrival. There really was no point in repeating all that information again.  
  
“Just trust me, alright?” Jensen asked and strangely enough, Jared found that he did.

 

  
“Hey Alona,” Jensen flashed his brightest smile at the blond receptionist of the ICU ward and watched her whole face light up with pleasure as she looked up to meet his gaze.

It wasn’t exactly fair to use her massive crush on him to manipulate her, but the fact that she blushed and stammered over her own words whenever he entered the room just made things so much easier.  
  
"Jensen," Alona returned breathlessly as if his mere presence somehow sucked all the oxygen from her lungs. "I didn't expect you to come today. Pediatric’s visit hours won't start until 3 PM."  
  
Jensen was a regular visitor at Saint Andrews. He had always had a soft spot for kids, so whenever he got the chance to drop by on his way home, he made sure to visit the pediatric ward and spend an hour or two with the children there, reading them stories and generally trying to make them forget the fact that they were bed-riddled and sick.  
  
It had become quite the habit over the past two years and despite the obvious one-sided attraction hanging in the air between them, Jensen had found himself looking forward to the brief chats he had with Alona whenever she was on duty.  
  
She was a smart girl, trying to finance her own medicine major with this job as a receptionist at the clinic and if Jensen hadn’t been a hundred percent into guys, he would have certainly appreciated the girl’s intelligence and the way her golden curls framed her pretty features.  
  
As it was, Jensen was still too hung up on the thought of Jared brushing his thumb up the side of his neck in the parking lot outside to even notice the way Alona’s breasts practically jumped out of the blue V-neck she was wearing. 

_Yeah... definitely still into guys._

"I know, that's not why I'm here. Listen, I know this isn't exactly in line with the protocol, but I need you to do me a solid.”  
  
"What is it?" Alona's features darkened. "Did something happen? How can I help?"  
  
Jensen rubbed the back of his neck, looking contrite. "My cousin was brought in about an hour and a half ago. Motorcycle accident on the 360. His name's Chad Michael Murray, but I guess you have him listed as John Doe. About yay tall, green eyes, short cropped blond hair... He's got a few scars littering his abdominal sternum and his left scapula from previous accidents."  
  
"My god, Jensen, I'm so sorry," Alona lifted a hand to her lips and he felt a twinge of guilt for lying about something so serious.  
  
He cleared his throat. "Yeah, it was quite the shock when I got the call. Can you give me his stats?"  
  
"Sure. Did you bring documentation?"  
  
"That's where the favor comes in," Jensen smiled in that bashful manner, head tipped slightly forward and eyes half-lidded, that he knew would make her melt into a puddle of goo within seconds.  
  
Alona sighed, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Jensen, I can't just give out client information like that. You know that. It could cost me my job."  
  
"C'mon, Al... I just basically described the guy's whole body from top to toe, how do you think I know all that?”

"He could be a friend. God Jensen, knowing you, he could have bypassed you on the streets and you would have remembered all that. I just- I can't."

Time to bring out the heavy artillery.

"Oh c'mon," Jensen leaned in to tuck one of Alona’s loose hair strands behind her ear, well aware of the impact the simple gesture left on the girl with the briefest brush of his fingers against her rosy skin. “Alona, _please_ … Chad and I haven’t had the best kind of relationships, but he’s family, you know? His parents haven’t talked to him in years. I’m the only one he has left and I just need to know that he's gonna be okay.”  
  
“Jensen—“  
  
“Nobody will ever know. I just need five minutes, in and out.”  
  
Jensen could see the exact second when Alona’s steel resolve crumbled like sand under the combined force of Jensen’s charm and the pleading tone of his voice.  
  
Hook. Line. And sinker.  
  
“I’ll be right back with his file,” she pressed out in a tight tone.  
  
Jensen closed his eyes, heart beating wildly in his chest. He couldn't believe he had just done this for a total stranger.

 

  
“You stare any harder at them and your jaw’s gonna break,” Genevieve hissed at Jared from where she was sitting on Chris’ lap across from him.  
  
Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun, a few loose strands falling into her cat-like eyes and her legs were propped up on the coffee table between them, dirty biker boots scrunching up month-old fashion magazines.  
  
Startled by her voice, Jared forced himself to look away from where Jensen and the blonde receptionist were being a little too chummy for his liking.  
  
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he pressed out in a tight voice, fighting the urge to storm over there and kiss the ever-living shit out of Jensen just to see the shocked expression on barbie doll's unsuspecting face. 

“I’m talking about the goddamn way you keep staring at loverboy and his flaming fangirl over there. You’re not exactly being subtle, you know?” Genevieve snorted, withdrawing from Chris’ loose hold on her waist. “Why don’t you just walk over there and pee on him? Stake your claim for the whole fucking world to see. Might make things a little easier...”  
  
Jared rolled his eyes at the petite woman, annoyed by her aggressive attitude.

It wasn't hard to see that she was looking for a fight and with the way his own nerves were frayed, Jared was half tempted to snap back at her.  
  
Thing was, Genevieve and he had fucked.  
  
Not just once or twice, either… they used to fuck like rabbits, had done it so many times that Jared had lost count, _hell,_ their last roll in the hay hadn’t even been that long ago.  
  
She was a pretty little thing with a sharp mind and an even sharper mouth and Jared would be lying if he said he didn’t love the way she writhed against him whenever they lost themselves in each other.  
  
But most of all, he loved how uncomplicated things were between them, how easily they could switch back and forth from being friends to being friends with benefits.  
  
And wasn’t that every man's wish come true? Having hot, casual sex with a pretty girl, no strings attached?  
  
Well, they say if things sounded too good to be true, they usually were.  
  
Which is why Jared was currently faced with a fierce bout of Genevieve’s jealousy.  
  
Jared shot her a disapproving glower, lips thinning out in anger. “Really? Chad’s in the fucking hospital and that’s what you wanna talk about?”  
  
“Don’t make this about Chad, asshole!” Genevieve spat out and several pairs of eyes turned towards them at the obvious scene she was causing. “This is about you and me.”  
  
Jared grabbed Genevieve by the lower arm, pulling her close until there was barely any room left between them.  
  
“There is no you and me,” he growled, not even trying to mask the harshness of his words. “There never was. Not in the way you think.”  
  
He had told her time and time again, that whatever they shared together would never go beyond casual sex, would never be more than physical pleasure. Because Jared didn't _do_ relationships, had never made a secret of the endless string of meaningless flings and one-night-stands in his life, and yet here she was, blowing this shit all over his face at the most inappropriate of situations.  
  
“Whatever Jared, go fuck the college boy’s brains out. See if I care,” with that Gen grabbed her jacket from where she had tossed it onto Chris’ seat earlier and headed for the exit.  
  
Jared pinched the brink of his nose and tried to breathe through the headache that had started building up behind his eyes.  
  
“Wow,” Chris let out after a second of tense silence. Of course, the asshole wouldn’t know when to shut his fucking mouth. “That went over well.”  
  
“Shut the fuck up,” Jared snapped with a warning glower in his friend’s direction. The last thing he wanted to hear right now was some crappy advice on how to treat women by somebody with a track record of broken relationships as long as fucking Chris’.  
  
“I’ve never seen her that furious over one of your boy toys before,” Chris added because apparently, he hadn’t gotten the memo about not poking a tiger with a stick.  
  
“He’s not my  _boy toy_ ,” Jared clenched his jaw. Genevieve had a tendency to be rude to people when she was in a bad mood, but something about Jensen seemed to have really rubbed her the wrong way.  
  
Jared sent another look over his shoulder to where Jensen was tucking a loose hair strand behind the girl's ear in a way that was so obviously flirtatious and his hands curled into fists by his side.   
  
Chris let out a throaty chuckle. “Man, you’re so gone for that kid. Maybe that’s what tipped her off the wrong way.”  
  
“The fuck are you on about?” Jared frowned, shaking his head. “I haven’t even touched the guy.”  
  
“That's what I'm saying, man,” Chris pointed out and Jared’s frown deepened with confusion.“You haven’t even fucked him yet and you can barely take your eyes off him, and back there when the kid was making doe-eyes at that receptionist? You were about ready to snap that girl’s neck, dude”

“That’s bullshit,” Jared denied. He had only just freaking met Jensen two hours ago and apart from the fact that he was smoking hot, there really was little else he knew about the guy. It wasn’t exactly like they were a match made in heaven or anything.  
  
Jared was about to say more, to tell Chris to stop being delusional, but that was when he noticed Jensen’s approaching form from the corner of his eye and the words instantly died on his lips.  
  
“Hey,” Jensen said, holding a dark blue file in his hands. “You got a second?”  
  
“Oh _hell, no_ ,” Chris jumped up from his seat, taking a step forward. “Whatever you’ve got to say, you can say it to both of us.”  
  
“Fine,” Jensen spoke in a low voice and from the tension in his shoulders and the way the tendons of his neck stood out beneath the pale skin on his throat Jared could tell that whatever Jensen had found out about Chad, wasn’t anything good.  
  
Jensen let out a slow breath, eyes downcast as he spoke. “I’m not a doctor yet, so don't take my word for it… But I’d say he’s got a 70 percent chance of survival and I'm afraid that's being optimistic.”  
  
“ _Shit_ ,” Chris pressed out, eyes turning glassy and blood draining from his face.  
  
Jared said nothing, fingers curling into fists as he tried to swallow around the ice cold jolt of pain that pierced his heart. He thought about the cheerful sound of Chad’s laughter and the way his smile could light up a whole room.  
  
He thought about the endless nights the two of them had spent talking about everything and nothing or sharing a beer in comfortable silence.  
  
“He’s sustained some serious injuries during the fall, the most severe of them being a fibular fracture to his leg. The bone pushed through and judging from the medication he’s been administered I’m guessing he’s battling infection, which is not uncommon for this kind of injury.”  
  
“What about his spine?” Jared asked, voice breaking a little at the thought that Chad might come out of this paralyzed. The idea was unbearable, nearly making him sick, but Jensen was quick to reassure him.  
  
“No injuries to the spinal cord, but he’s knocked his head up pretty good and the concussion was severe enough to make him fall into a coma. They are currently doing a CAT scan to check for subdural hematomas.”  
  
“The fuck does that even mean?” Chris snapped, quickly losing his patience with the way Jensen expressed himself.  
  
“They are dangerous forms of bleeding in the brain,” Jensen explained patiently and Jared couldn’t help but think that the guy would make a perfect doctor with the way he kept his cool even when everybody else around him was freaking out. “The blood clots press down on important areas of the brain, which control breathing or other essential body functions… sometimes the consequences are fatal.”  
  
Jared’s blood ran cold.  
  
He couldn’t believe this was actually happening- that his friend’s life was hanging by a thread.  
  
“That dumb motherfucker,” he pressed out from behind clenched teeth, kicking a chair leg in frustration. "Can't fucking believe he did something so stupid."  
  
“Don’t give up on him yet,” Jensen insisted. “A lot of people have been where Chad is now and had a full recovery.”  
  
Jared swallowed around the lump in his throat and squeezed his eyes shut. He was afraid to let himself hope. “So what happens next?”  
  
“If they find a bleeding, they’ll have to operate to remove the blood clot from his brain. The sooner the surgery takes place, the better his chances of survival. If they don’t find a bleeding, they’ll have to keep him under close surveillance for the next few hours and get him stabilized… with a little luck, he should be able to recover enough to break through the coma.”  
  
“Can we see him?” Chris asked in a hoarse voice, rubbing a hand over his scruffy beard.  
  
Jensen bit his lower lip. “ICU only allows blood relatives or spouses in with the patients. Once his stats improve and he gets moved to a regular ward, it shouldn’t be a problem.”  
  
“That could be weeks from now!” Jared exclaimed.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jensen murmured as if he was trying to shoulder the blame for the fact that they couldn’t visit Chad in the hospital room.  
  
Jared felt a pang of guilt for venting his frustration on Jensen, when all the guy had done was bend over backward to help them. He wanted to apologize, wanted to wipe the unhappy expression from the other man’s face, but the words got stuck somewhere in his throat.  
  
“So there’s no sense in sticking around then?” he asked in a clipped tone, jaw clenched tight with frustration.  
  
Jensen shrugged. “I could try to sneak a peek at the CAT scans once they’re ready but there're a few more patients in line before him, so it might take a while."  
  
"We'll wait," Chris said without missing a beat, but Jared was already shaking his head.  
  
"No, we won't. Jensen, you've already done enough as it is, we can't ask you to stay here all day. I will just take you back home and we call this a day."

"I don't mind," Jensen was quick to explain. "Alona thinks Chad's my cousin, so it's not exactly like I could just leave without her growing suspicious."  
  
Jared worked his jaw mechanically, feeling a twitch of _something_ in his chest. It was a foreign sensation, warmth and gratitude spreading in the pit of his stomach. "That's... I don't even know what to say, man."  
  
"Then don't say anything," Jensen gave back with a shrug. "I'm already too far into this to back out now."  
  
At that point, neither of them knew how true these words would turn out to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this story is going to be long and that's why the build-up is slow. I'm sorry for that, guys. There will be loads of drama and action and sexy action as we move on with the plot line :) This chapter was getting too long, which is why I had to split it in half. But there will be more very soon! Are you guys still up for the ride? Reviews make me happy, so let me know what you thought!


	3. Chapter 3

** **

** **

**Open Road**  
**Chapter 3**

Sitting in a hospital waiting room until your ass started hurting was hardly a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon, especially when you were surrounded by flu patients who were coughing and sneezing and generally hacking up their lungs all around you.  
  
But Jensen tried to ignore that and focused his attention on something pleasurable instead, like the fact that the guy sitting in the chair next to him was a twenty feet tall, sculpted _god_ of a man.

Call him shallow or whatever, but he figured if he had to spend his precious spare time in some germ-infested waiting room, he might as well make the most of it and enjoy the view.

And damn. What a view it was.

Jared's head was bowed slightly forward and in the fluorescent light of the hospital lobby Jensen could make out every line of his ruggedly handsome features, the slight frown that marred the man’s forehead, the delicate slope of his tattooed neck and the way he clenched and unclenched his jaw every few minutes, working his throat in a way that was downright pornographic.

They had been here for almost three hours now, time ticking by in tension-filled silence.

The hospital lobby was filled with the steady buzz of conversation, the distant beeping of heart monitors and the incessant ringing of the phone on the reception desk causing Jensen to feel like someone tried to drill a tunnel through his skull.

Chris was listlessly flicking through one of the magazines that were spread out on the coffee table before them and Jared's foot was bouncing up and down nervously on the seat next to him.

The shaggy-haired man had grown gradually more twitchy over the past three hours and Jensen could only imagine how riled up he must feel after being left in the dark about his friend’s condition for so long.

Jensen didn't know this Chad, didn't even know Jared, really, or any of the other members of their skewed little biker family, but he had seen enough to know that they cared about each other deeply.

And that realization had struck a cord somewhere deep inside of him, had lit up his whole body with an almost desperate sense of _longing_.

Because Jensen hadn't talked to his own family in almost four years, could barely remember the sound of his mom’s voice or the touch of his dad’s hand upon his face.

And that hurt. It hurt to know that if their roles were reversed - if it was Jensen lying in that fucking hospital room instead of Chad - nobody would be there to worry about him.

Nobody would _care_.

Jensen's eyes watered up on their own account and that right there, that dull pain piercing his heart was the exact reason why Jensen never let himself dwell on the past, why he never let the memories of his family resurface from the darkest corners of his mind.

He told himself that there were people that cared about him, people who had taken him in with open arms when he had first moved up to Boston like Danneel, Mike, or Tom.

And then it suddenly hit him.

_Tom._

Fuck.

Jensen's heart skipped a beat when he remembered the Houdini act he had pulled on his best friend a few hours ago.

Fumbling for his phone, Jensen nearly dropped the damn thing in his haste to pull it out of his jeans pocket and then groaned when he found the twelve unanswered calls and eight unread messages staring accusingly back at him from the display.

He scrolled down to the first one and opened it.

 ** _‘Where did you run off to? I searched the whole building for you!_ ’' **(Message from: TOM. Received at: 11:37AM)

Swallowing down his guilt for having abandoned his best friend at the show, Jensen opened the next text with a heavy sigh.

 ** _‘Tell me you didn't jump on some stranger's bike, Jensen. You're smarter than that.’_** (Message from: TOM. Received at: 12:02PM)

 ** _‘Didn't your mom teach you not to run off with tall, scary-looking guys?’_   **(Message from: TOM. Received at: 12:48PM)

Jensen snorted, already opening the next message.

 _‘_ ** _Did you lose the freaking ability to answer your phone along with half your functioning brain cells? CALL ME._ ’** (Message from: TOM. Received at: 13:28PM)

 ** _‘Jensen, I'm serious. Call. Me._ ’** (Message from: TOM. Received at: 13:55 PM)

 ** _‘If I find out that you pull this shit on me for some irrational fling that's never gonna work out, I'm gonna rip you a new one. No kidding._ ’**(Message from: TOM. Received at: 14:32 PM)

 _‘ **Jensen, call me, please. This isn't like you. I’m worried, man.’**_ (Message from: TOM. Received at: 15:44 PM)

The next message was from Tom's boyfriend and Jensen gulped before opening it.

 ** _‘You better have the best fucking sex of your life right now. Tom's two seconds away from filing a missing person's report. He's freaking OUT on me.’_   **(Message from: MIKE. Received at: 16:21 PM)

Tom must have really been scared if Mike felt the need to reach out to him like that.

His friend had been seriously concerned about him,enough so to actually contemplate going to the police and filing a missing person’s report and here Jensen was, wallowing in self-pity over not having a family.

He let out a slow breath before starting to type a hasty response. _‘ **I’m so sorry, Tom. Gonna explain everything when I’m back home. I'm**_ ** _fine though, promise.’_**

It didn’t even take 30 seconds before his cell vibrated with Tom’s response.

 ** _‘You won’t be after I’m through with you.’_ ** (Message from: TOM. Received at: 18:05PM)

Jensen sighed, flipping his phone closed with a guilt-riddled expression on his face.  
  
He deserved every bit of the ass-kicking Tom had in store for him for what he had selfishly put his friend through these past few hours.

"Trouble in paradise?" Jared's voice startled him out of his thoughts.

He looked up to see the guy's hazel eyes fixated on him like he had been staring the whole time.

It sent a shiver of _something_ down his spine to know Jared was watching him.

“Just Tom,” Jensen explained softly. “He was worried about the disappearance act I pulled back at the show. Can’t believe I forgot to text him.”

“He your boyfriend or something?” Jared asked, the dangerous twinkle in his eyes giving away how much the thought bothered him.

If Jensen didn’t know it any better, he’d have said Jared was jealous.

The realization was more than a little surprising. After all, Jared had only just known him for one day.

It’s not like Jared had any plausible reason to be territorial.

“No… uh, we’re just friends,” Jensen explained a little awkwardly. He briefly contemplated adding _'Not that it's any of your business'_ and then decided against it, knowing that Jared had enough on his plate as it was with Chad's life on the line and everything. 

Seriously, though, the mere thought of him and Tom being anything more than platonic buddies was absolutely ridiculous.

Besides, Mike and Tom had been together for almost all their lives. If Jensen ever even tried as much as look into Tom’s direction with more than brotherly affection, the slightly older man would probably throttle him.

Not that he wanted to, because... just no.

“Then why is this bothering you so much?” Jared shrugged, some of the tension leaving his body at Jensen’s answer. “You don’t owe him an explanation. You’re an adult, you can do whatever the hell you want.”

“It’s not that easy,” Jensen gave back with a slight frown, wondering if that was a principle Jared lived by, cut free from societal norms or responsibilities, never owing anyone explanations.

He opened his mouth to say more, when the front door of the hospital was suddenly thrown open with a ricocheting bang, causing them all to jump a little in their seats.

Jensen whirled around to look at a twenty-something-year-old woman with a wild expression on her face. Her brown hair fell openly over her shoulder, eyes bloodshot and brimming with emotion.

"Oh, that's just freaking perfect," Chris muttered darkly under his breath as soon as he spotted the woman who was making a bee-line for him and Jared. “Just what we needed on top of everything else.”

"The fuck are you doing here, Sandy?" Jared growled as he straightened up to his full height, shoulders squared and body coiled in a way that was nothing short of intimidating.

The girl - Sandy- came to a halt in front of the tall man and lifted her chin. Jensen had to give her credit for being so defiant in the face of this hulking mountain of a man right in front of her.

She didn’t look intimidated at all, just sad and genuinely worried _._

"I heard what happened and I— I just needed to be here. God, Jared, how is he?" she asked, tone wavering slightly as she struggled to get the words out.

The dark circles beneath her eyes spoke of days - maybe weeks - worth of sleepless nights and her cheeks looked sunken in like she hadn’t had a proper meal in ages.

The doctor inside of Jensen revolted at the sight.

Jared’s face twisted, one of his shoulders lifting in a half-shrug. "Why the hell would you care, huh? It's not like you give a damn about him anyway. You made that pretty clear when you up and left his sorry ass."

"Damn it, Jared, just fucking tell me how he is!" Sandy demanded, her voice shaking.

"So _what,_ Sandy?” Jared spat angrily. “So you can pat yourself on the back for having checked in on him? So you can go back to your white-picket-fence life and keep pretending that he isn't fighting for his life in there because of the way _you_ broke his fucking heart?"

The slap came out of nowhere, the sound of flesh hitting flesh resounding through the waiting room and shocking them all into silence.

Jared's head whipped to the side, pale skin reddened from where her palm had impacted with his cheek.

Sandy was breathing heavily, her own eyes wide with shock as she looked down at her own hand as if she couldn't quite believe what she had done.

Jared looked just as stunned, jaw muscle twitching and eyes smoldering with barely restrained anger.

For a second, Jensen thought he was gonna lash out at her, but Jared just stood there, eyes darkened and nostrils flaring.

"Don't you dare put this shit on me, Jared,” Sandy hissed, once she had regained her composure. “Don't you freaking dare! I wanted him out of the legion because I _knew_ something like this was going to happen! I wanted him out, Jared, I wanted him safe and you were the one pulling him back. So you want somebody to blame this on, how about you take a good, long look at yourself!"

“Oh, you would have fucking loved that, wouldn’t you?” Jared's eyes lit up with undisguised rage. “For you to waltz into his fucking life and cut all ties to his brothers, his _family_?”

“See, that right there is your fucking problem, Jared! You make this whole gang bullshit all about family when it’s actually nothing but a one-way ticket to an early grave! Chad wouldn’t be in that hospital if you hadn’t gotten him into the legion in the first place and you know it.”

Something cracked in Jared’s carefully maintained steel facade and for a brief second, Jensen could see guilt flooding his features.

And that was when Chris decided that enough was enough, pushing into the space between their bodies and shoving them apart. "Alright, cut it the fuck out! What the hell has gotten into you, throwing accusations around like that when it won't do Chad a fucking lick of good? He should be the only thing on our minds and not whatever bad water we all got under the bridge!"

"He's right," Jensen chimed in, surprised to hear his own voice. "I don't know what half of this is about, but you're both here because you obviously care about Chad and that's the only thing that should matter right now."

Before any of them could respond, the sound of somebody clearing their voice caused all of them to turn around. 

“Is this a bad time?” Alona asked in a clipped tone, perfectly-shaped eyebrows drawn up as if to demand an explanation for the group's rowdy behavior. Jensen felt his insides contort with shame when he noticed the dozens of eyes that were trained on them.

The patients in the waiting room were eyeing them with equal measures of fear and curiosity.

Right next to where Jared and Sandy were standing, a little girl had buried her face in her mother’s chest and started crying, obviously unnerved by the scene they were causing.

_Shit._

“Al, I’m sorry,” Jensen apologized, taking a step towards the blond receptionist only to have her jab a blue folder into his chest.

“I guess you wanna take a look at the scans. They all returned negative. No hematomas or epidurals were found. Looks like your cousin was extremely lucky.”

“Oh, thank god,” Sandy gasped out and Jensen could hear the blatant relief in her voice.

Jared squeezed his eyes shut and tangled his fingers in his thick auburn hair, sinking down in one of the hard plastic chairs and letting out a long shaky exhale. 

“That means he's gonna be okay, right?" Chris asked breathlessly.

Alona’s pursed her lips. “At this point, there’s no way to tell. They will have to keep a close eye on him in the next few days, do a few more tests… but his chances for a full recovery have definitely improved with the outcomes of the CAT.”

Jensen opened the folder and took a brief look at Chad’s results to reassure himself.

In the case of hemorrhaging the X-ray scans would show the position and spread of the blood clot in hyper-dense, which appeared white on the computer generated images. But the image in front of him didn’t show any signs of subdural or intracerebral bleeding. 

“Looks good,” Jensen conceded with Alona’s verdict, before handing the folder back. “No hypertension or trauma to the cerebral tissue. I’d say they’ll have to do another scan once the concussion has worn off, but, for now, things are definitely looking up.”

Alona looked at him with that faraway, dreamy gaze that never failed to make him uncomfortable. But then she seemed to catch herself staring and quickly cleared her throat. “Well, I’m glad your cousin’s fine. You know where to find me if there’s anything else…”

“Wait,” Jensen grabbed Alona’s arm and her eyes widened slightly when he pulled her in for a brief embrace. “Thanks for helping me out today. I won’t forget it, Al.”

She resisted only for a second or two before she melted into his arms. 

“Anytime,” Alona gave back softly as she withdrew from him, but there was a resigned sadness to her tone that hadn’t been there before. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

There was no way Jensen could have missed the slight undertone in her voice when she said the word ‘friends’.

_Cause that’s we’ll ever be, right, Jensen?_

Jensen’s gaze shifted up to meet Jared’s from where the taller man had hovered close, pretending not to listen in on his and Alona’s conversation.

The muscles on his neck stood corded with silent tension, the tattooed wolf just below his ear dancing with movement when Jared licked his lips in silent anticipation. 

He swallowed. “Right.”

Alona blinked, the flicker of hurt evident in her eyes before she could cover it up with a plastic smile. “I’m glad I could help. See you around, Jensen.”

Jensen winced as he watched her go, knowing something had just irreversibly changed between them and hoping that it was for the best.

“Yeah, see you around.”

 

   
As soon as Alona’s back was turned and the news about Chad’s stable condition had fully sunken in, Sandy had left the hospital without a word in goodbye, tears streaming incessantly down her cheeks.

Jensen had felt the weird urge to go after her, but thought better of it when Chris started cursing a blue streak about what a lousy person she was and how much better Chad was off without her.

Through it all, Jared didn’t say a word.

There was nothing left for them to do in the hospital with Chad still being in the ICU and all, which is why they left soon after.

Jared graciously offered to take Jensen home with the bike, while Chris rolled his eyes and muttered something about Jared being _‘pussywhipped’_.

Jensen was pretty sure he would have taken offense in that if he hadn’t been so caught up in the thought of having Jared’s muscled back pressed up against him again so soon. There was just something about these broad shoulders and the play of muscles across his back that forced every coherent thought from Jensen’s mind.

“Yeah, I mean, if you don’t mind taking the detour.”

“Jensen,” Jared said his name like it was a prayer. “What you did for us today… You don’t even _know_ us and you went to such lengths—“

“Hey,” Jensen gently cut him off, noticing Jared’s emotional distress. Chad’s accident had visibly put the guy through the grinder and the after-effect wasn’t pretty. “It wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m glad I could help.”

“Just..” Jared’s head dipped a little, dark strands of hair falling into his eyes until Jensen’s fingers were twitching with the urge to tug them behind his ear. “Just let me take you home, okay? It’s the least I can do.”

And there Jensen’s remaining brain cells went, turning to mush in the span of a second. It was ridiculous how easily Jensen lost control of all his rational thoughts in the presence of this stranger in front of him.

Jensen nodded and then frowned when they neared the exit and the old hospital building creaked as the wind outside roared and whistled around them.

“Fan-freaking-tastic,” Chris cursed under his breath when he noticed the heavy drops of rain that were splashing loudly against the hospital windows. “Storm's brewing. Just our kind of luck, huh?”

Jensen shivered at the idea of driving home in the rain.

He hadn't brought a jacket.

Jared cast him an assertive look as if he could somehow read his mind and before Jensen got a chance to start protesting, the longer-haired man had pulled out of his leather jacket and held it out in front of Jensen’s chest. “It’s not gonna do much to ward off the cold, but it’s better than nothing.”

Jensen swallowed when he got an up-close look at the flimsy gray tank top that stretched dauntingly over Jared’s ripped chest and stomach, his eyes tracing the intricate ink patterns on the man’s toned skin with undisguised fascination.

“C’mon,” Jared insisted. “You’re shivering. Put it on while it’s still warm.”

Jensen shook his head, pushing the offered jacket away from his chest. "Jared’s it’s raining. And you’ll be sitting in the front, taking the brunt of it. ”

Jared rolled his eyes. “It’s not like I’m offering you a Rolex or something. Just fucking put it on.”

Jensen bit his lower lip when he took the jacket from Jared’s hold.

The smooth, black leather settled over his shoulders like a second skin and he let out a soft sigh at the cozy warmth that swathed him like a woolen blanket.

The fabric was battered and brittle from overuse and Jensen could smell the faint remnant of Jared’s aftershave still clinging to it.

“What a loving display,” Chris mocked in a sarcastic tone as he shouldered past them. “You two are gonna break my fucking heart. Now can we please burn some rubber?”

Jensen blushed at the words and Jared flipped Chris off in response.

Even now, there already was a familiarity to it all, an easy comfort between them that neither of them could deny.

 

 

The ride back was a whole lot worse than the drive to the hospital had been and that was really saying something.

This time, though, the problem wasn’t first-time-jitters but the fact that it was pouring rain in apocalyptic torrents, soaking them both through and through as they thundered across the highway.

Jensen could feel the wheels of the bike turn over every wet crack in the road, the enormous speed bringing the icy cold rain into his face harder and faster than it ever did before, skin tingling with the numbing pain of a thousand needle pricks.

Jared’s jacket had given up keeping his body dry a while ago and by now Jensen’s bones had started shivering with the freezing chill that soaked his clothes. Jared was a warm, solid presence against his chest, his feet and arms working the bike as he pressed forward with all he was worth. Jensen would have given his left arm to swap places with one of the car drivers on the highway around them, safe and protected behind tons of crafted steel and shatter-proof glass.

They stopped about 60 miles away from the Harvard campus, in a completely foreign neighborhood and Jensen was too relieved over the fact that they had _stopped_ to notice that he wasn’t actually home.

Jared moved off the bike in one fluent move and helped Jensen off the backseat with steadying arms.

His limbs were numb and tingling with cold, his brain sluggishly trying to catch up with what was going on around him.

“In here,” Jared murmured, his face a ghostly shade of white as he guided Jensen over the doorstep of a foreign house.

“W-where…?” Jensen’s lips didn’t seem to want to comply with his brain’s orders, but Jared understood him just fine.

“My place,” he explained. “We can’t go any further on the road when it’s pouring like this.”

Jared pulled his tank off as soon as the door fell closed behind them and Jensen froze in place, entranced by the way Jared’s soggy hair was dripping with water, sending glistening raindrops down his tattooed chest until they disappeared below the waistline of his low-hanging jeans.

This was crazy.

It was cheap-porn, trashy-horror-movie crazy.

Jensen couldn’t believe he was in some stranger’s house, soaking wet and half frozen to death. Next thing he knew, he’d probably be sharing a hot shower with the guy or cuddling up with him on a fluffy rug in front of the fireplace.

_No._

Jared was hot, sure, but Jensen wasn’t that naive.

He wouldn’t let himself become another notch in Jared’s belt.

“I’m just gonna call a cab or something,” Jensen excused himself, eyes already fixated on the front door as he staggered forward, limbs still not complying a hundred percent with his upstairs brain.

Jared stepped into his path. “Relax, alright? You look like you’re two seconds from keeling over. You get into a fucking cab like this, all you’ll end up with is gonna be a 50 dollar bill and a nasty lung infection.”

Jensen took a shuddering exhale, shaking off the taller man's touch. “I’m not gonna be your 'flavor of the week', Jared.”

He hadn’t meant for the words to come out this harsh, but Chris’ comment from earlier had bothered him and he didn’t want Jared to get any ideas.

Not that he wasn’t interested or tempted by the 6 feet worth of adorable sexiness in front of him. But Jensen wouldn’t allow himself to be taken advantage of.

"You think that's what this is about?" Jared demanded, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. “Listen, you don’t have to be my _anything_ if you don’t want. I have lots of issues, but taking ‘no’ for an answer isn’t one of them.”

Jensen felt his insides churn at that. He hadn’t meant to imply that Jared would do anything against his will.

The mere idea was unimaginable. Jared might be a little gruff around the edges, but there was a sense of security emanating from his presence that made Jensen think the other man could never do anything to hurt him.

Jared sighed, shaking his head as he stared off into the distance. “Guest room’s at the end of the hall, I’ll put a set of dry clothes in the bathroom next to it. You’re welcome to stay the night, but I won’t hold you back if you wanna leave.”

Jensen bit his lips as he watched Jared turn around, ready to retreat into his own room.

In a flash of panic, his arm shot out, icy fingers wrapping themselves around Jared’s wrist to hold him in place. “Let’s say I spend the night... how big are the chances of you making me breakfast tomorrow morning?”

Jared held his gaze steadily and for a moment the silence between them was deafening. 

Then his eyes lit up a little, the tension slowly leaving his shoulders.

“On a normal day, I'd say close to zero. But with you not putting out and all. I wouldn't get my hopes up," he deadpanned, the corner of his lips twitching slightly up into a smile, eyes glinting a little in the dim light of the hallway. 

Jensen smiled, his heart doing a little flip at the sight of Jared’s dimpled grin and flashing white teeth.

He was _so_ screwed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I hope you liked the new update! Please let me know what you thought and if you're still up for more. I'm also open for special wishes in terms of scenes you'd like to see played out or characters or whatever as long as it complies with the overall plot I have in mind for the story. Reviews make me happyyy :)


	4. Chapter 4

** **

** **

 

 **Open Road**  
**Chapter 4**

The early morning hours found Jared wide awake on the ratty couch in Jeff's living room, listening to the slight drizzle of rain that hit the window panes from outside.

It was one of these gloomy days, clouds hanging low enough to dip the whole neighborhood into a misty haze and under different circumstances Jared would have doubtlessly spent the day curled up in front of their rickety TV-station, channel-surfing and pigging out on fast food.

But it wasn't just any other day, not with what happened to Chad.

Jared's memories of the hospital were blurred and scattered, his worn-out brain warring between anger over Sandy’s visit and the feeling of frustration at not being able to do anything to help Chad or contribute to his recovery.

He still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that his friend had almost died on that hospital table, that he had almost fucking checked out on Jared forever.

Because Chad might be a reckless idiot, but he knew how to ride a goddamn bike and Jared liked to think he could differentiate between a daredevil move that gave him a little adrenaline boost and a stunt that would most likely land him in a wheelchair or in an early grave.

Doing a wheelie on the highway while going 120 mph was definitely of the second category.

Chad should have known that. He _must_ have known that.

But what if Chad had known that his little stunt would end badly?

What if he had done it on purpose?

What if he had tried to take his own life and go out in a blast of glory?

The thought was unbearable, had kept Jared up all night, memories of them together dancing dauntingly behind closed eyelids as he had tried to force his heartbeat to calm down and get his fingers to stop shaking.

Sandy’s words had hit him harder than expected and they had kept replaying in his mind for hours on end.

_I wanted him out, Jared, I wanted him safe and **you** were the one pulling him back._

It was only partly true.

She had offered Chad an out, had begged him to leave all the gang business behind and move across the continent for a life with perspective, a life with a _future_.

And Jared had been terrified that Chad might actually take her up on the offer. He had seen the indecision in his friend’s eyes every time their eyes met for days after and fucking hated it.

“Is she worth it?” he had asked one night, even though he had been afraid of the answer. “She worth leaving behind everything you’ve ever cared about?”

Chad had looked pained, mouth twisted into a grimace and for once in his life he didn’t try to blow Jared off with humor. “She’s worth everything to me, man. I just want to see her happy."

“Thought that’s the whole point of you leaving together.”

Chad snorted. “What would a good-for-nothing bastard like me do with a girl like Sandy? She deserves better.”

He had said her name like it was something sacred. Someone who deserved everything he could give and more. Someone he would do anything to protect, even if that meant letting her go.

Needless to say, their break-up wasn’t pretty.

It ended with her leaving. Alone.

After that, they didn't see Sandy in almost six months and Chad had started acting off.

Jared had lost count of how many times he or Chris had to pick a drunk Chad up from some no-name bar with busted knuckles and a few broken ribs because of yet another fight he had started.

It had gotten a little better with time, but just when Jared had dared to let himself hope that his friend was going to return to his old self, the news of Sandy’s engagement hit them full force and sent Chad reeling again.

It was worse the second time.

Chad had been _broken_.

Shattered by the thought of Sandy with someone else.

The sound of somebody clearing their throat caused Jared to turn around and then nearly choke on his tongue in the process.

Jensen was leaning against the door frame, dressed in a pair of Jared’s favorite slacks, the fabric hanging dangerously low on his narrow hips and exposing a small strip of pale flesh just above the jut of his hipbone.

His hair was tousled from the shower he had taken and the plain V-neck did nothing to hide the toned chest and well-defined arms beneath.

"I hope I didn't wake you," Jensen started hesitantly, fingers toying with a loose thread on the seam of the shirt he was wearing. 

"You didn't," Jared gave back. He straightened up from his cramped position on the couch, his joints popping back into place as he stretched his sore muscles. "You sleep alright?"

Jensen nodded. "Yeah, thanks for letting me crash here."

"Don't mention it," Jared said, getting up from the couch and coming to stand in front of Jensen, his gaze flickering down to that plush bottom lip the other man kept gnawing on as if he was purposefully trying to draw attention to his kissable mouth.

To think that Jensen had been lying in his childhood bed, stretched across the mattress in a tangle of limbs, with his mouth open in blissful oblivion conjured up all sorts of kinky images in Jared's mind.

"It's the least I could do to repay you for your help. And to make up for everything you had to put up with last night."

Jensen's lips twitched. "It wasn't that bad."

Jared snorted. "Oh yeah? What part did you like best? The one where Sandy slapped me in the face or the one where we both nearly caught pneumonia on the ride back?"

"Don't forget the part where I threw up all over the parking lot," Jensen supplied with a shy smile, head dipped slightly forward as if to try and hide the fact that he was still embarrassed by that particular memory.

"Yeah, there was that, too, ” Jared said, taking another step forward until their bare feet were almost touching.

He couldn’t say why, but there was something irresistible about the way Jensen smiled, about the way he laughed with his whole body, eyes lighting up like fireworks and skin crinkling around the corners.

There was an undeniable attraction between them and Jared would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the way it made him feel, the sparks of fire that shot through his body at every brush of skin against skin, the overwhelming sense of comfort that overcame him whenever their eyes met.

“Guess we’re gonna have to practice a little more, huh? Get your body used to the epinephrine and all.”

Jensen’s eyes lit up a little at the jibe. “You remember that?”

“What, you think only a college boy like yourself can throw around with fancy vocabulary?” Jared teased and Jensen sputtered. “What?! No, of course not—“

“Dude… relax. I'm just messing with you.”

Jensen still looked a bit tense and Jared idly wondered what might have caused the guy’s insecurities. Why did he feel the need to make excuses for his intelligence when it was something he should be taking pride in, instead?

Maybe he had gotten bullied at school or something. Jared stored the thought in the back of his mind, ready to dig it back out at the right occasion.

“I don’t mean to be a bother, but my phone’s out of battery and I need to make a quick call, “ Jensen started, scratching the back of his neck. "Would you mind if I—"

"Knock yourself out, " Jared slipped a hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a battered looking smartphone with a broken screen. “Just don’t make a call to the UK or something.”

Jensen rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because that’s exactly what I was gonna do. Call the British prime minister for our weekly Sunday morning brunch.”

Jared couldn’t help but laugh at the snappy comeback, feeling the worry lines on his forehead slowly melt from his face.

He loved a guy who could take a joke and roll with the punches.

“Want some coffee to go along with that business call of yours, Mr. Bond?” he asked around a yawn as he made his way into the messy kitchen and outmaneuvered the stacks of unwashed dishes and empty takeout cartons that piled up on the floor.

“Shaken, not stirred,” Jensen winked at him before turning around to walk out of the room and make a phone call.

Jared stared after him for a few seconds, mouth slightly agape.

Was he imagining things, or was Jensen warming up to him?

So he was easy on the eye AND easy to hang out with.

Well, that was just great.

Not like Jared didn't already have a hard enough time staying clear of Jensen as it was.

Just his kind of luck that with every new facet of the guy’s character that was revealed, he became a little more interesting, a little more _attractive_.

Jared poured himself a cup of the steaming black brew, scalding his tongue on the first sip, as he listened to Jensen making a call, hushed voices and some muffled words erupting from the hallway that led to Jared's old room.

He told himself he was too old to eavesdrop but his good resolutions only lasted for a second or two before curiosity overcame him and he sneaked closer to the door.

 _“—m sorry. …forgotten...when… and... hospital. … not like this, you know that...sorry. What… want me to say? It’s not like... on purpose. —just seen each other a_ week _ago. _—m_ ake up for it tonight.”_

Jared could only make out bits and pieces of the conversation, but it was enough to make him realize that this Matt guy had been expecting Jensen the night before, probably with more than just a friendly football game in mind.

It sounded like they were gonna have a date.

Or even worse, like they were actually _dating_.

The thought sent Jared's blood boiling, fingers curling up into fists and ready to bash someone’s face in, preferably the face of the guy who was on the other end of that line.

His imagination ran wild with images of Jensen gracefully sinking to his knees in front of some greasy-haired, college boy to _'_ make up' for their missed date.

His breath stuttered at the thought.

Jared tried to be rational about it, he tried to come to terms with the fact that Jensen wasn’t _his_ and that he would probably never be anything more than a friend, but that didn't exactly make the thought of him with someone else easier.

_“Okay, see you tonight. Bye… yeah, Matt_ _… me too.”_

Jared slammed a flat palm against the wall in frustration before he could stop himself.

The words kept ringing through his head like a broken record.

_Me too._

There weren't a whole lot of things this Matt guy could have said to provoke that two-lettered response from Jensen.

Jared was so lost in his thoughts that he almost didn’t hear Jensen move towards the door.

He scrambled away from the doorway just in time for Jensen not to suspect anything and busied himself with one of the newspapers on the kitchen counter. 

“Sorry about that,” Jensen said when he handed the phone back and Jared looked up to see the contrite look on the other man’s face.

Didn't exactly look ecstatic over his date with that guy. 

“Sorry about what?” Jared played dumb, handing Jensen a cup of steaming coffee and trying hard not to let on how bothered he was by what he had just overheard.

Jensen looked at him with narrowed eyes, as if he could see right through the act. He took the coffee and averted his eyes, not calling Jared out on the lie.

“My friend... we were having a discussion. I thought you might have heard.”

“That Tom guy again?” Jared wrinkled his nose, keeping up the act. “He still on about the whole Houdini thing you pulled on him? Sure he’s not your boyfriend? You two are fighting like a couple.”

Jensen took the jibe in stride. “For somebody who barely even knows me, you have a weird interest in my love life.” 

 _‘Oh, you have no idea,’_ Jared thought to himself.

“What can I say,” his lips twitched into a cocky smile. “I’m an inquisitive guy.”

“You are a nosy bastard,” Jensen corrected and Jared felt himself loosen up at that.

“Same thing,” Jared shrugged, before setting his mug down and pulling a half-finished box of cereal from the cupboard. “What were you fighting about?”

“You won’t let this go anytime soon, will you?”

“Nope.”

“Fine,” Jensen sighed, rubbing a hand over his temples. “It’s this guy I’ve been seeing. His name’s Matt.”

Jared’s grip on the ceramic bowl tightened and the rush of possessiveness that overcame him was fierce enough to steal his breath away.

“We’ve gone out a few times. He was supposed to come over to my place last night for a movie and ended up soaked in the rain because I forgot to send him a text. And now he's pissed. Satisfied?”

_Satisfied?_

Jared couldn’t have been more dissatisfiedif he tried.

The thought of Jensen being anywhere near another guy, much less snuggled up on a couch and making out lazily to some trashy horror movie had Jared bristling with fury.

“Fair enough,” he gave back, trying not to let his irrational anger show, before handing Jensen the cereal. “Here’s your breakfast.”

“I thought you weren’t gonna make me any?” the blond man asked with a raised eyebrow, licking a drop of milk from his finger.

It took a moment for Jared to compose himself after watching the tip of Jensen’s pink tongue sneak out from between these plush lips to curl around his digit.

“Consider it a sample,” he swallowed. “For the real deal.”

“You mean for when I’m putting out?” Jensen inquired with a teasing twinkle in his eyes, remembering Jared’s words from the night before. "You say that like it's a done deal."

Jared stared at him for a few seconds before putting his empty bowl in the sink and coming to stand in front of Jensen, all broad-shouldered and topless glory.

"You think it's not?" he asked low under his breath, enjoying the way Jensen gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing slightly at their sudden closeness. The blonde was trying to look anywhere but at Jared’s bare chest and failing miserably at the task.

Jared smirked, taking Jensen’s bowl out of his hand and dumping it on the table behind him.

Then he leaned in close enough for his noses to brush. 

“See I have this rule not to hit on guys that are taken,” he breathed roughly against the shell of Jensen’s ear. “But for you, I’m almost willing to make an exception."

Because no way was he going to give Jensen up to some lame-ass college kid named Matt without a battle.

There was a moment of silence, their bodies far too close to be comfortable and yet not close enough.

Before he knew what he was doing, Jared reached out to thumb at Jensen’s bottom lip were another drop of milk had gotten caught at to corner of his mouth.

Jensen watched him with blown pupils, breath hitching slightly as their mouths hovered mere inches apart.

The electricity between them set the air on fire and made it hard to breathe, hard to think or focus on anything other than the all-consuming urge to lean in and—

“Oh for god’s fucking sake, Jay! _"_ a gruff voice caused them to jump apart like a couple of fourteen-year-old teenagers who had been caught making out in the closet.

Jensen turned a fierce shade of red when he saw Jeffrey stand in the doorway to the kitchen in nothing but a washed-out AC/DC shirt and black boxers.

The older man's hair was a mess, his salt-and-pepper beard and the dark shadows beneath his eyes giving his face a haunted look.

Recognition flared in Jensen’s eyes and Jared remembered that the two of them had met briefly at the fair the day before. 

“We weren’t— I was just about to—“ the blond man stammered, trying to make up an excuse for why they were standing so close together.

“You were just about to get your mouth plundered by my ridiculously overgrown idiot of a son,” Jeffrey snorted with a shake of his head as he poured himself the rest of the coffee and took a sip. "And from the looks of it, you were going to enjoy it."

Jared shot Jeff a warning glower. “It’s none of your business what we were doing.”

“I really don’t care as long as you keep it in your room, alright?” Jeff shrugged, voice still hoarse with sleep. “Nobody wants to see that shit at eight fucking thirty in the morning. Hell, I’m still half blind from walking in on you and Chase the other night—“

“We get your fucking point, okay?” Jared cut him off, eyes glaring daggers at Jeff from where the guy was still leaning languidly against the kitchen counter.

He really fucking hated Jeff right now.

They had agreed never to talk about that whole fiasco with Chase again.  
  
And now he mentioned it in front of Jensen at the most inappropriate of times?

Was he _trying_ to sabotage him?

“I think I need to get going,” Jensen said, pushing off the counter and making a start for the door.

Jared sighed and shot another accusatory look in Jeff's direction.  _You fucking happy now?_

He charged after Jensen, prepared to do some damage control, but the younger man had already gathered his clothes from the night before and made it to the entrance hall.

“How do you think you’re gonna get home like this? It’s still raining outside, your phone isn’t charged and you don’t even know the neighborhood.”

Jensen had another thing coming if he thought Jared was going to let him leave like this. “Look, if it's about what Jeff said, never mind him, alright? He didn't mean anything by it."

“I just really need to get going, alright? I’ll just take a bus or something.”

"Why are you in such a rush all of a sudden? Can't wait to get back to _Matt_?" Jared growled, anger getting a hold of him once more.

Jensen’s eyes narrowed slightly at the words. "I don't need to explain myself to you, Jared."

“Alright, fine," the taller man backpedaled, grabbing Jensen's wrist to hold him in place.  "Just let me take you with my car, no more delays, okay? I’ll take you straight to your dorms and all.”

Jensen looked at him for a long moment before shaking his head. “I really think it would be better if I took the bus.”

“You seriously want to take the fucking bus through one of the shadiest areas in South Boston, looking the way you do? Dude, I wouldn’t even let you go out there in body armor. No fucking way. Only way you’re gonna leave this house is through me.”

Jensen glared at him for a few seconds, eyes fierce with defiance.

Jared didn’t give an inch.

Then the tension was broken when Jeff's voice rang out through the living room.

“Would you fucking go with him already? The hell does it take to get some peace in this freaking house so early in the fucking morning?” 

Jensen’s resolve crumbled and Jared snatched his keys from the counter. 

“C’mon,” he said, shouldering past Jensen. "I'll let you ride shotgun." 

 

 

For the most part, the drive to Harvard was spent in silence, trees and houses passing by them in a blur as Jared steered them through the cobbled streets of South Boston.

The steady screeching of wipers against glass lulled them into an illusion of serenity as the heavy rain kept hitting the windshield in an endless torrent, each droplet of water like a translucent fingertip knocking against the sides of the car.

“Can I ask you something?” Jensen asked after a while.

Jared shifted gears, never taking his eyes off the road. “Shoot.”

“Do you really think Chad might have tried to end his life?”

The question was asked so matter-of-factly, so outright and blunt and unannounced, that Jared found himself speechless for a second.

He opened his mouth and closed it again, finding that he couldn’t force any words around the sudden lump in his throat.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you or anything.“

“No it’s okay,” Jared cut him off. But it took another minute or so for him to gather enough courage to continue. He cleared his voice. “He was a different person after what happened with Sandy. The Chad I’ve grown up with, my best friend, would have never gone off the deep end like that, but the truth is he was a tumbling mess after they broke up. A shell of the man he used to be. I hope like hell I'm wrong about this, but I think it might be a possibility."

Jensen was watching him the whole time as he talked, eyes warm with compassion. He seemed to reflect on Jared's words for a bit before asking his next question. “Do you think she still cares about him?”

"Who, Sandy?" Jared grimaced. “Last I heard she got engaged to some rich kid in upstate New York. So my best guess would be no.”

Jensen went quiet after that for a moment, turning to watch the blurred scenery they passed by from behind the car window.

“She wasn’t wearing a ring.”

“What?” Jared asked, brow creasing at the question.

“If she recently got engaged, shouldn’t she be wearing a ring? I didn’t see one.”

Jared hadn’t noticed anything, but he had been too distracted by the whole thing with Chad freaking dying to take notice of pretty much anything else around him.

“I don’t know, man. Why are you so interested in this?”

Jensen shrugged. “Just inquisitive _,_ I guess.”

“Dude,” Jared laughed, easing off the gas a little when the looming red brick buildings of the Harvard campus appeared on the horizon. “We gonna keep throwing old jokes back and forth at each other?”

Jensen just smiled as he drew a random pattern into the fogged glass, watching a pearl of condensed water track an uneven path on the cool surface and revealing the world behind the clouded veil.

“Maybe.” He didn’t stop smiling until they reached the parking lot.

Jared pulled up near the big study hall and idled the engine.

“So… quite the eventful night, huh?” Jensen offered up with a shaky smile.

Jared wanted nothing more than to reach over and pull the younger man in for a hard kiss.

Instead, he silently continued to stare at Jensen.

“Yeah,” he rasped out, willing his voice to stay strong.

Jensen licked his lips. “Guess I’ll see you around then.”

His voice was hopeful, almost like his words were an offering of more time spent together instead of the goodbye they were meant to be.

And yet Jared couldn’t force his throat to work, couldn’t conjure the right words to express his gratitude for what Jensen had done for them.

Jensen’s smile faltered as the seconds passed in silence and a flicker of hurt crossed his features when he turned to wrap his fingers around the door lever. "Bye, Jared."

“Wait,” Jared breathed out, leaning over to pull the car door closed. "I've got something that belongs to you."

He reached inside his jacket and pulled a leather-bound booklet from his pocket.

"My sketchbook," Jensen’s eyes widened at the sight. “Where did you get this?” 

“Found it on the floor this morning. You must have dropped it on your way inside the house last night. ”

Jensen's face paled at the sight that greeted him when he opened the book. The pages inside were still soggy with rainwater, the paper so garbled that it was barely recognizable.

All the pencil sketches drawn by his hands were reduced to big blotches of gray, the carefully drawn lines now soaked and distorted by the rain that had saturated the paper.

“It was long past saving when I found it,” Jared explained softly, feeling like he should have done anything to save that stupid book if only it would have kept the crestfallen look from Jensen's face.

The blond man just kept staring down at the notebook in shock, jaw muscle working silently as he ran his shaking fingers over the ruined drawings.

Then he slammed the book closed, eyes brimming with emotion. 

“I’ve been working on this for months _,"_ he said in a soft voice, pinching the bridge of his nose as if to clamp down on his emotions.

Jared let out a slow breath, heart heavy with guilt.

Back at that biker show, Jensen had reached out to him because he had needed help with his art project, and now all of his work was ruined because he had tried to help Jared out.

Life was ironic that way, sometimes. 

“Look, I know it sucks, but if it helps, you can drop by our shop anytime, alright? We have bikes of all shapes and sizes. Plenty of stuff to get inspired by.”

Jensen looked up at him, fingers tightening around the corners of the book he was holding onto.

“Shop’s called 'Black Legion Customs', unsurprisingly, I know,” Jared laughed, shaking his head a little at the look of incredulity Jensen sent him.

“Shut up, man, it wasn’t my idea, okay? Anyway, I wrote the address on the last page of the book in case you ever want to take a look around the place.”

“Thanks,” Jensen said softly and Jared had to look away to keep himself from doing something incredibly stupid.

"Anytime."

 

It wasn’t until Jared had pulled out of the driveway, cold raindrops splashing against Jensen’s cheeks as he stared after the battered looking truck Jared drove that he dared to open his notebook again.

He found the address of Jared’s bike shop scribbled into the corner of the last page in sloppy handwriting.

Next to the words _Black Legion Customs_ Jared had drawn a small phoenix with spread wings much like the one that was tattooed across Jared’s chest and stitched across the back of his leather jacket.

Jensen was still in so much shock over holding the ruined remnants of his art portfolio in his hands, that he didn’t immediately realize what he was staring at, but just below the address of the shop, Jared had written something else.

Digits.

A phone number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter!! :) Gotta say I am a little nervous about this one. Not sure if it turned out right or not. :-S But I guess I'll let you guys be the judge of that. Thank you all so much for the amazing feedback I've received for this story. :) I know, I know... it's a sloooow build up but we're getting there. Please tell me what you thought about the update!


	5. Chapter 5

** **

** **

**Open Road  
** **Chapter 5**

It was way past lunchtime when Jensen finally found his way to his dorm on the west end of the Harvard complex.

Tom and he shared one of the quaint double suites at Lionel Hall, which was one of the oldest buildings on university grounds.

Their community in the Ivy Yard was small-knit and close, complete with several study groups, sport teams and get-togethers.

Jensen loved everything about it- from the rustic red bricks that glowed a bright crimson in summers, and warmed up the scenery during frosty days in winter, to the wooden library with all its dusty tomes and studious college kids.

When he first arrived here over four years ago, he had been homesick and miserable, hating Boston for its dull grayness and the constant rain.

The school had seemed cold and intimidating at first, comprised of obnoxious rich kids who had looked at him as if he had grown a second head when he had first arrived on the campus grounds.

But the second Tom had entered their dorm room on orientation day, with wild hair and friendly eyes, balancing a ton of bags in his gangly arms, Jensen had known that he would eventually grow to like the place.

He had been right. For the most part.

Jensen jogged up the outside stairs, enjoying the crisp autumn air as it bit into his skin and ruffled his brown spikes.

When he stepped inside the old brick building, the smell of dusty books and rain wafted through the hallways and Jensen could instantly tell that it was a lot quieter than usually.

Many people from their complex must have gone home over the weekend; visiting friends or family.

Jensen swallowed, trying not to dwell on the fact that last night had actually been the first night in years he had spent outside of Lionel Hall.

There was no one to visit- nobody to come home to outside of the college grounds.

Not since his family had cut all ties to him almost five years ago.

Jensen glanced down at the damaged booklet in his hands and brushed his fingers lightly against the frayed paper edges, silently basking in the knowledge that Jared was only a phone call away.

It was kind of weird how much comfort he took in that knowledge, especially given that they hardly even knew each other.

It wasn’t like he was going to call Jared or send him a text or, god forbid, hover over the phone like a schoolgirl to see if he would actually text him back.

Nope. Not at all.

Jensen sighed, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t completely and hopelessly gone for the guy, even though his skin was still tingling at the thought of how close they had been in Jeff’s kitchen- of how hot Jared’s breath had felt against the shell of his ear.

The door to their room was locked, which confirmed his assumption that Tom must have spent the weekend at Mike's place, and Jensen felt his insides uncoil a little at the realization. As much as he loved his friend, the last thing he needed right now was more of Tom's bitching about how irresponsibly he had acted the night before.

Jensen wiggled the key around in the lock, (it got jammed quite often) and then sucked in a shocked breath when an arm snaked around his waist from behind.

“Hey gorgeous,” Matt grinned against his neck and Jensen felt instant relief wash through him at the sound of the other man’s voice.

“Matt,” Jensen returned with a disapproving frown on his face, twisting his body until the other man was forced to loosen his hold around him. “What the hell? You startled me.”

Their eyes met and an involuntary shiver ran down Jensen’s spine at their closeness.

Matt was only an inch away from his face, arms still loosely wrapped around Jensen’s hips and making him squirm in discomfort.

Jensen knew his feelings were irrational, especially since they had gone out on several dates before, but he couldn’t help tensing up a little whenever Matt was close like this- whenever he so blatantly disregarded the concept of ‘personal space’ and sidled up to Jensen as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” Matt leaned in for a brief kiss and Jensen was so caught off guard that he tripped over the doormat and hit his shoulder on the doorframe.

Matt’s lips awkwardly collided with the side of Jensen’s jaw, nowhere even near his mouth, and Jensen grimaced at his own clumsiness.

“You okay?” Matt frowned, blue eyes flashing with concern as he took a step back.

Jensen gulped, telling himself he hadn’t purposefully avoided the kiss, but the truth was he felt a little overwhelmed by Matt’s unannounced appearance and it had made him edgy.

“Yeah, no I’m fine. Let’s just… move things inside, okay?”

Matt blinked at him, looking a little puzzled by Jensen’s skittish behavior.

“Sure,” he said after a second, running a hand through his dark brown hair.

It wasn’t until they had entered the dorm that Jensen relaxed a bit, feeling oddly soothed by the strong wooden pillars that outlined the red brick walls of their apartment, and by the soft tones and colors of their interior.

Bookshelves lined the walls of their living space, the blue and white sofa comprising the centerpiece of the room.

Some of Jensen’s favorite sketches were displayed on their walls, framed by reddish metal, adding an artsy touch to their otherwise conservative furniture.

Jensen would have never put any of them up if Tom hadn’t insisted on it, but now that they were hanging from the walls Jensen couldn’t help but feel a small twinge of pride every time he walked into their dorm room.

Their apartment was rather big for a student residence, which was why most of their friends usually hung out in their living room, kicking back and fighting over who got to eat the last slice of pizza or over what movie to watch, instead of staying in their own, much smaller, dorm rooms.

For the most part, he and Tom both enjoyed the company, but if it ever became too much, they still had the option of retreating to their respective bedrooms for a little bit of privacy.

All in all, they really couldn’t complain.

Jensen bypassed the dining table to crank one of their floor-to-ceiling windows open and let a fresh breeze of air into the stale room.

“I didn’t expect you so early,” he said, stepping over a stack of heavy, Latin inscribed books that lay piled up on the floor.

It was hard to tell if they were Tom’s or his own at this point, with them having accumulated five years’ worth of reading material.

“Thought we weren’t gonna meet until later tonight,” Jensen said.

He sent a look back over his shoulder and gulped when he noticed the overflowing bag of groceries in the other man’s arms.

A box of spaghetti and a bundle of carrots were peeking out from the top of the paper bag, and Jensen vaguely remembered having told Matt about his weird pasta craving at some point during one of their dates.

“Well that’s what I thought too, but then I saw you coming up the stairs and figured we could make up for lost time,” Matt lifted the groceries with a small smile, eyebrows arched suggestively.

“I also wanted to apologize for being such an ass to you this morning. I didn’t mean to yell at you on the phone. I just… I’ve been looking forward to our date, and I guess when Tom told me you’d vanished with some stranger, I was being irrationally jealous.”

Jensen dipped his head slightly forward, thinking of the worried text messages Matt had left him the night before, after having stood in the pouring rain for over an hour and having waited for him to show up.

He thought about the way Jared’s muscular back had felt against his own chest as they rushed down the road and about how Matt couldn’t have been further from his mind at that time.

Yeah. Maybe Matt’s jealousy wasn’t as irrational as he thought.

“I’m sorry for last night, Matt. I was just so caught up with what happened that I forgot about pretty much everything else around me."

That part, at least, was 100 percent true.

In Jared’s presence, Jensen hadn’t even remembered his own name, much less anything else that was going on at the time.

Somewhere in the back of his head, alarm bells went off at how easy it had been to forget about Matt and focus all of his attention on Jared instead.

Jensen wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t quite as much into Matt as the guy was into him.

Ever since Jensen first met him at one of these frat parties, he had known that their feelings for one another weren’t quite reciprocal.

Matt had been bending over backward to be everything Jensen could have ever wished for in a guy, and more these past few weeks.

He had been a true gentleman in every form, giving Jensen space when he needed it and showing genuine interest in his life.

And on a purely shallow note, Matt wasn’t exactly hideous, either.

The guy could have easily been a model with his height, baby-blue eyes, and luscious dark mane.

Jensen was definitely attracted to him physically, and he also liked him well enough as a person and it didn’t make any sense how he hadn’t fallen for him when it was so obvious that Matt would be good for him.

God knew, all his friends thought they were the perfect match for each other and would eventually end up married with five kids.

And Matt himself seemed to be fairly on board with the idea.

Apparently, Jensen was just a little slow on the uptake.

“Hey, I get it,” Matt stepped closer, reaching out to tenderly cup the side of Jensen’s face with his palm. He brushed his thumb along the smooth cut of Jensen’s jaw in a gesture that made the younger man shiver.

“You’re a doctor. It’s your job to drop everything and leave when somebody needs help. I’m sorry I lashed out at you this morning. You only did what you were supposed to do.”

Jensen thought about it.

Sure, saving lives was part of the job description.

He wasn’t a doctor yet and maybe he would never end up as one, but the urge to help others had always been there, simmering deep inside of him.

However, what he had done for Jared the day before hadn’t been out of purely selfless reasons.

The fact that Jared was freaking sex-on-legs had most definitely influenced his decision to jump on the backseat of his bike, but Jensen wasn’t going to mention that to Matt anytime soon.

Matt licked his lips, gaze flicking down to Jensen’s mouth with obvious hunger in his eyes.

“Should we try the whole 'hello' thing again?” he asked in a low voice. “This time maybe with a little better aim?”

Jensen was still clutching his sketchbook in his hands and he couldn’t help but feel as if a bit of Jared’s presence had seeped into the pages along with the ink of his pen when he’d written his number inside.

“You know what I always say about kissing, right?” he protested weakly, reaching up to carefully pull Matt’s hands away from his face.

Matt rolled his eyes. “You’re not gonna bring up the whole germ thing again, are you?”

“The tongue is home to over 700 types of microscopic bacteria and that’s on a normal day. Add to that the fact that it’s October, and I have spent about four hours of my life cooped up in a hospital waiting room last night and your chances of catching something by kissing me are around...” Jensen did the math in his head, “—74% higher than usually.”

Matt laughed again, shaking his head, but he didn’t seem as turned off by the statement as he probably should have been. “I'm starting to think you’re trying to scare me off, Dr. Ackles.”

“What? No, that’s—” Jensen stumbled over the words in his rush to get them out. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Luckily Matt didn’t seem to notice.

“Good,” he said, eyes glinting with anticipation as he started to lean in once more. “Cause I’m willing to take the risk.”

Jensen bit his lower lip but didn’t try to move away when Matt closed the gap between their mouths.

Matt was a good guy. He was kind and smart and gentle. He would do anything for Jensen, including buying him a fancy ring, building a house, planting a tree and having 2.5 kids with him.

Jensen was aware of all that. He knew it from the bottom of his heart.

And yet, the only thing he could see when he let his eyes fall shut were Jared’s dimples, and the only thing he could think about was about that stupid number the guy had left in his sketch book.

Sure, Matt was pretty close to perfect. He was safe and easy and right freaking _there_.

But then again, Jensen had never taken the easy way about anything in his entire life.

So why start now?

 

 

Jared went straight to the shop after he had dropped Jensen off at the campus.

From the number of bikes in the parking lot, he could already tell that it was busier than it should be for a Sunday afternoon, but that didn’t stop him from dropping by.

“Look who we have here,” Steve crooned as soon as Jared had stuck his neck through the doorway. “Didn't think I'd get to see your ugly mug today."

The familiar scent of motor oil, leather and gasoline filled his airways and Jared took a deep breath, embracing the flood of memories the smell evoked inside of him.

“Just making sure you’re not running my business into the ground,” Jared shot back without missing a beat as he sauntered up to the counter.

Steve grasped his palm and pulled him in for a loose half-hug in greeting.

He clasped the back of Jared's neck in a gesture of support before stepping back to look at him. "How are you holdin' up, man?"

Jared locked his jaw, averting his eyes.

He had never been able to lie while looking someone straight in the eyes.

"I'm fucking fine. It's not me you should be worried about."

Steve gave him a curt nod, neither of them big on words or emotions.

They weren't exactly the share-and-care type, would probably never open up to one another that way, but Jared had learned to read his brothers over the years, and the sad glimmer of compassion in Steve's eyes was all he needed to see in order to understand that the long-haired musician was just as shaken by Chad's accident as everyone else.

Jared squeezed Steve's shoulder in silent reassurance, comfort given and received without question or hesitance. "They say he's gonna pull through. Probably won't let us see him for another couple of days, though."

Steve drove a hand through his unruly blond mane, looking distraught.

There was a smudge of motor oil on his cheeks, and the white shirt he was wearing was caked in grime from the constant exposure to the bikes in the shop.

"Chris told me they wouldn't give you jack on his condition. I'm glad college boy showed up and helped you guys out."

"Yeah," Jared heard himself say, unsurprised to find that Chris had told Steve about Jensen. "Me too."

Suddenly, some of the earlier playfulness returned to Steve's countenance, and his lips stretched into a sly grin. 

"Chris said you took the kid home last night. I take it you thanked him properly for his help?"

It was just meant to be mindless joking, the kind they threw back and forth every single day. But for some reason, it rubbed Jared the wrong way.

“I didn’t fuck him, alright? Why does everybody keep saying that?”

Jared stiffened abruptly, head tilted as he listened to the distinct approach of footsteps on Steve’s stairs.

He turned and was less than startled to see Katie enter his frame of vision, unwieldy package in her arms.

Her mouth was already open before her foot hit the landing, and Jared braced himself for the sarcastic reply he knew was going to come.

“Uhm, maybe because you’re the biggest man-slut alive?” Katie supplied unhelpfully before dumping the box full of leather gloves on the counter before Steve. “New delivery’s just arrived. These need to be sorted and put on the rack.”

“So why don’t you fucking do it yourself?” Steve challenged, never one to take an order without first putting up a fight.

Katie arched a pierced eyebrow at him, eyes twinkling darkly with the promise of unleashed fury if Steve didn’t do exactly what she asked of him.

Jared had to give it to her, for a woman of her small stature, she was far more intimidating than she had any right to be.

Jared sighed, reaching over the counter to grab the box himself.

“Grow the fuck up, both of you. The hell am I paying you for when I end up doing most of the work myself?” He didn’t wait to hear their grumbled responses before carrying the new merchandise over to the section of the shop that was designated for leather gear.

Jared wasn’t usually much for logistics and handling merchandise, as his main expertise lay within the actual mechanics of assembling and dismantling motorcycles.

But he had never shied away from helping out in the store when it was needed and since Chris and Genevieve were working their booth at the Grind’N’Gear Show today, they were a little short on staff.

Besides, Jared was hoping the task would distract him from the thought of Jensen- or more specifically, Jensen and Matt making up for missed 'quality time'.

Some of the new gear was already unwrapped, biker jackets in different sizes and colors hanging from the racks on all sides of the store; flashy neon signs of BMW, Norton, Enfield, Harley and other popular motorcycle manufacturers lighting up the wood-paneled interior of the shop.

They had decided to trim the whole store with wood to bring a little bit of Texas into their style and add to the rustic Wild West flair Jeff had always had a liking for.

A jukebox and coke vending machine from the early 50ies were neatly integrated into the shop’s décor, both discovered at one of the various garage sales and flea markets Jeff had gone to over the years.

And then there were the bikes, of course, proudly displayed in the shop windows and on small panels at several different locations within the store. Some of them were built up from scratch, others had been touched up or revitalized.

But the rest was pretty much just RSD jackets, motorcycle apparel, helmets and other protective gear- as well as actual motorcycle parts and some interesting vintage stuff.

They also sold label shirts, hoodies, and jackets with the shop’s name written across the back, but that was all for marketing purposes. Only members of the gang were permitted to wear the actual logo on their clothes- the black phoenix being the symbol that displayed their loyalty towards each other, and their community, to the rest of the world.

“Jay,” a deep voice greeted him and Jared’s head snapped up from where he had begun stacking up the gloves.

Ty, one of their oldest gang members and one of Jeff’s closest friends was leaning against one of the wooden pillars, the usual navy cap tucked low over his hooded eyes as he watched him work.

“Didn’t expect you back here so soon after what happened to Chad last night. Kid gonna be alright?” Jared had expected Jeff to carry the news of Chad’s condition on to the rest of the gang, but apparently, he had guessed wrong.

“You know Chad,“ Jared gave a tight smile, not letting on how bad off Chad really was. “He’s a tough son of a bitch. Takes a lot more than an asphalt slide to take him down.”

“If you say so,” Ty shrugged, looking unconvinced. The guy had always been a little on the gruff side, interacting less with the brothers than anybody else in their gang, but Jared had always just thought he was more introverted- more reflective in his very own way, so he hadn’t been bothered by it. “Listen, I don’t know if Jeff has talked to you about this or not but there's something you should know about the accident."

Jared tensed, halting his movements.

"Yeah?" His eyes narrowed slightly at the sense of dark foreboding that accompanied the words. "What's that?

Ty lowered his head and crouched down a little, throwing a furtive glance over his shoulder as if to check whether or not anybody was listening, and Jared’s heart kicked up a little in his chest.

“One of the Reapers has been spotted on the same highway your boy got himself laid down on the tarmac.”

Jared’s breath stuttered at the words. For a second, he couldn’t catch any air at all, then it whooshed back into his lungs with a force that made black spots dance at the edge of his vision.

The anger was blinding, all-consuming.

A slumbering monster deep inside of him that reared its ugly head and surged back to life at the mention of the rivaling gang name.

Twenty years had passed since his mother was shot on the streets right in front of his eyes, and there wasn't a single night since then, where he hadn't woken in a cold sweat with the bitter after taste of their gang name on his tongue.

“The fuck are you saying?” Jared hissed, digging his fingers into the leather gloves he had been stocking the shelves with just a minute ago.

He had a pretty good idea about what Ty was implying but he needed to make sure. Needed to know it without a shadow of a fucking doubt.

Ty rubbed a meaty hand across his stubble. “Think about it, Jay. After what happened at the crossfire in Roxbury they find Chad rippin' it up on the highway all by his lonesome, practically offering himself up on a silver platter. That sound like an opportunity too good to be passed up to you? Sure as hell does to me."

Jared locked his jaw hard enough to break.

“You think they chased him?" he asked, barely able to force the words out from behind gritted teeth.

So help him, God, if that was what happened, Jared would find every last one of the motherfuckers who did this and make them wish they had never been born.

Ty lowered his eyes, flicking his tongue over his lips. “Local police cam caught a few shots of them being hot on Chad's heels. Jeff was going to call in a meeting tonight, he said to hold off on telling you, but—"

Jared got up from his crouch, not listening to whatever else Ty had to say as he grabbed his own jacket from where he had dropped it on the ground.

With determination etched into his features, Jared didn’t even spare Steve or Katie another glance as he made a bee-line for the store's exit.

“What's going on?” Steve asked, coming around the corner with a confused frown on his face.

He followed Jared and grabbed the taller man by the bicep. “Hold on a second, where do you think you're going?”

He realized a second too late that trying to hold Jared back was a huge mistake.

"Get the fuck off me," the taller man hissed, whirling Steve around and slamming him up against the doorway with brute force.

His large hands were fisting the material of Steve's overalls, their noses only inches apart as Jared's rage-filled eyes bored into him.

"I said. Get Out. Of my way."

"What the hell, Jared?" Katie demanded as she tried to push them apart. "Let him go, you're hurting him."

Those were the words that broke through the red haze of fury that clouded Jared's mind.

He blinked and looked down to where he had viciously twisted Steve's arm to the side in an unnatural position.

Steve had an unreadable expression on his face, eyes wild and nostrils flaring. Katie and the few customers that were scattered across the store were all looking at him as if he was a ticking time bomb and Jared thought, with a weird sense of detachment that maybe he was.

Jared took a deep breath and released Steve’s hand.

He never voiced the apology that was on the tip of his tongue.

"Don't try to fucking come after me."

 

 

Monday morning rolled around with even more grayness and misery.

By lunchtime, the slight drizzle that had woken him had turned into a steady stream of rain, punctuated by occasional gusts of wind, and Jensen found himself clinging to the mug of steaming green tea in his ice cold hands as the buzz of conversation and scraping forks against platters filled the cafeteria around him.

The bad weather was definitely part of the reason why the dining hall was so busy today, with students haphazardly scattered around the large wooden tables, chatting, gossiping, studying or just generally trying to pass the time.

Jensen found himself oddly soothed by the background noise as he and his friends sat in their usual spots on the dark mahogany table littered with books, pens and a whole array of food and drinks.

Their dining hall looked like something that was taken straight out of Harry Potter, several rows of beautifully crafted wooden tables perfectly aligned to the ancient brick walls that ended in a 20-foot high ceiling decorated with gothic chandeliers.

It looked like it was supposed to accommodate Arthur’s court and not a bunch of snobbish college kids.

“So, did you?” Mike broke the silence that hung in the air between them with an openly curious expression on his face.

“Did I what?” Jensen glanced up from where he was listlessly poking around in his caesar salad.

“I’m afraid you’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“Did you have the best sex of your life last night?” Mike said around a mouthful of his sandwich.

Jensen choked on the piece of chicken he was chewing on and Danneel actually had to hit him on the back a few times before he could breathe again.

Tom looked outraged at his boyfriend’s question, eyes wide and twinkling with residual anger over Jensen having ditched him at the show.

“Could you stop encouraging him about what happened and get serious about this?”

“Get serious about what, Tom?” Mike asked with an exasperated eye roll. “Jensen’s 21 years old. He can make his own decisions about who he spends the night with.”

Jensen was torn between shooting Mike a thankful look and throttling him on the spot for his earlier comment.

The bald man was a few years older than the rest of them and Jensen had always admired him for his collectedness and inner strength.

He was fastidious in all aspects of his life, hard-working and quick-witted.

He was good with words, too. One word out of Michael Rosenbaum’s lips and people were drawn to him, clinging to his words like a lifeline.

It was a good thing, really, that Mike had decided to combine his charisma with his overwhelming sense of justice, or otherwise he would have probably ended up as a politician.

As it was, he had made it his life's goal to become one of the most renowned lawyers in the city, and he was already halfway there if the ridiculous amount of job offers he was getting was anything to go by.

Mike was a diplomatic guy and he rarely ever interfered with arguments that didn’t concern him. So it was a little surprising to see him picking sides and defending Jensen for once.

Tom was equally taken aback by his boyfriend’s uncharacteristic behavior. “Are you saying what he did was okay? That it wasn’t reckless of him to run off with some second-rate mechanic from the streets?”

Jensen clenched his teeth in a sudden wave of anger. 

He didn’t appreciate the degrading tone in Tom’s voice.

“I’m saying he’s an adult, Tom,” Mike wiped his fingers on a napkin before bunching it up into a ball. “And whether you like it or not, that gives him the right to run off with whoever he damn well pleases.”

Jensen was about to point out to them, that he was also capable of speaking up for himself, thank you very much, when Misha decided to cut into their conversation from the side.

“So let me get this straight,” the dark haired man said, waving his forkful of beef through the air. “Jensen, _our Jensen_ , has ditched Tom to drive off with some shifty biker boy like straight out of West Side Story?”

“There are no bikers in West Side Story,” Jensen shoved his plate away, having lost his appetite. “They are rivaling street gangs.”

“Nobody cares about West Side Story, okay?” Tom interrupted, driving a frustrated hand through his hair. “The point is that you vanished without even letting me know you were okay! You could have been dead in some alleyway for all I knew.”

Jensen cringed a little at the image his mind conjured up, knowing that Tom’s worries weren’t completely unreasonable.

No matter how safe he had felt in Jared’s presence, there was no denying the fact that he lived in one of South Boston’s shadiest neighborhoods. And that was really saying something.

“Gee, stop being so melodramatic, Tom,” Danneel teased only to find herself on the receiving end of Tom’s patented bitchface. She ignored him and ogled Jensen with open curiosity in her startling green eyes. “So this Jared… you like him, huh?”

Jensen sighed, biting his lower lip to hold back the answer that was on the tip of his tongue.

Because, yeah, in all honesty, he did.

What wasn’t to like about a six-foot-something stranger with a gruff exterior and a hidden gentle side?

“Oh god, you _do_ , don’t you?” Danneel exclaimed with a knowing grin on her lips.

Jensen rubbed a hand over his jaw in silent defeat. There really was no sense in lying to someone with a psychology major.

“He’s a nice guy,” Jensen offered up with a loose shrug, not wanting her to read too much into it.

Because while Jensen was sitting here swooning over the guy’s tattooed chest and wavy auburn curls, Jared was probably off having fun with Chase or Genevieve or whoever else his new ‘flavor of the week’ was.

“So the fact that you rode off into the night in the backseat of his bike has nothing to do with the fact that you want to have sex with him?”

“Nobody wants to have fucking sex with anyone!" Tom exclaimed, sounding exasperated.

Mike slung an arm around his waist and pulled him in from the side, dropping a small kiss just below Tom’s ear to calm him down. 

“Nobody?” Mike grinned, voice dropping in volume as he leaned in to nose at the nape of Tom’s neck. “Really? Cause if I remember correctly—“

“Oh god, stop it, all of you!” Jensen dropped his fork, letting it fall down to the ceramic bowl with a loud clatter. He got up from his seat and started stuffing his notebook and water bottle into his backpack.

“Tom, I have lost count over how often I apologized to you about what happened, so stop your bitching and get over yourself.”

Tom’s eyes widened in shock at the unexpected outburst.

“As for the rest of you, _no,_ I did not sleep with Jared, not that it’s any of your business. The only reason I went with him in the first place was because his best friend very nearly _died_ , in case y’all have missed that detail of the story. Chad’s still in a coma, by the way, thanks for asking. Your compassion is overwhelming.”

Jensen was unsure as to where the pent-up emotions had suddenly come from.

But he steeled his resolve, expression unwavering as he slung his backpack over the shoulder.

They all looked positively chagrined for a second or two before the moment was broken.

“Oh, Jensen c’mon. It’s not like you even know the guy,” Misha weakly protested.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Jensen said. “But maybe with a little luck, I will one day.”

With that he turned around, striding out of the hallway and wondering how the hell Jared had managed to get him all growly and protective in the span of a single day.

Here he was, ditching his friends and picking fights with them for somebody he didn’t even really know.

Jensen slipped into the crowded classroom and settled down in his usual spot in the first row with a languid sigh.

It was going to be a long day.

 

 

The thing with Jared was that he was like a fucking volcano.

All granite stone on the exterior and hot boiling lava on the inside.

Chris knew this guy inside out, knew exactly when to approach him and when to back off and give him space.

He knew to read Jared’s facial expressions, his gestures, his body language because Jared wasn’t big on words and sometimes that was all the tall, broody man was going to offer up to communicate his emotions to the outside world.

But this, right here? Chris had no clue how to handle it.

He was leaning against his blue roadster, arms crossed in front of his chest when he heard the tell-tale roar of Jared’s Harley echo through the streets.

The engine’s rumble was loud and aggressive, nearing him with nearly inhuman speed.

Jared was going too fast, especially after what happened to Chad last night, but Chris wasn’t going to call him out on it.

When Steve had called him about half an hour ago, Chris hadn’t known what to expect, but he had already guessed it couldn’t be anything good. He still wasn’t prepared for the murderous intent that was chiseled into his friend’s features when he stopped his bike and swung himself off the seat.

“Jay, man, let’s talk about this,” he tried, stepping up with the intention to hold the taller man back, but Jared just shouldered past him, eyes blazing with unabashed fury as he stared ahead at the entrance of the Hell on Earth Clubhouse.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jared snapped without sparing him a glance. He pulled his Glock from the back of his jeans and re-inserted the magazine.

Chris swore under his breath at the sight.

_Shit._

“Jared. C’mon. What the hell do you think you’re gonna do with that gun?”

“Take an educated guess.”

Chris grabbed him by the arm, whirled him around. “This is fucking insane! You’re gonna get yourself killed if you go in there guns blazing and you fucking know it.”

“I don’t care,” Jared hissed, shoving Chris back with so much force that it sent the other man stumbling.

“ _I_ do!” Chris growled out, breathing heavily, heart beating a mile a minute in his chest. “Whatever this is about, man, we can figure something out. Something that doesn’t involve a blood bath and a 21-to-life prison sentence, alright?”

Jared stopped in his tracks, just a few meters away from the entrance of the clubhouse.

The muffled sound of laughter and music seeped through the cracks of the building and permeated the air around them.

It was a wonder none of these guys had spotted them yet. All it would take for them was one glance out of the window, one freaking look in their direction and Jared and he would most likely end up in the ICU right next to Chad.

Jared bit his lip in hesitation and Chris’ heart squeezed painfully in his chest. A pain, deep enough to mark an entire life shone back from those hazel pools.

“These bastards went after him, Chris. They chased him down the highway, caused him to go off lane. They tried to fucking kill him,” he bites out, voice wavering with emotion. “This isn’t just another bar brawl or drug heist. _Fuck_ , this isn’t even about all the shit that went down in Roxbury. What they did?” Jared pointed towards the club house, face twisted into an angry sneer. “It’s a goddamn declaration of war.”

Chris swallowed, feeling cold seep into his stomach. He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “They chased him off the lane?”

Jared’s lips thinned out, the tip of his nose twitching. “Police cam caught pictures.”

There was a beat of silence, unspoken words passed back and forth between them. “Jeff know about this?”

Jared looked away and it was all the answer Chris needed.

“Damn it, Jay.“

He shook his head, his rationality warring with his loyalty to the tall shaggy-haired man in front of him.

In the end, it wasn’t a hard decision.

He nodded, pulling his own gun from the back of his waistband and reaching out to clasp Jared’s neck in a hard squeeze.

”You know I got your back, right? No matter what. But I need you to fucking promise me that you’re not on some sort of suicide mission, here, man. Tell me you have a plan.”

Jared cracked his neck, jaw muscle twitching. “Oh, I got a plan, alright.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys! Sorry this took me so long!! It's almost a 7000 word chapter so I hope the length of it makes up for the long wait. Super big thank you goes to my new Beta 'TheBoys'. She's awesome!! Please let me know what you think!! Cheers


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning* This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violence.

**Open Road**  
**Chapter 6**

Jared stormed through the doors of the clubhouse with squared shoulders, his eyes glinting in defiance of death.

He was fast, Chris would give him that.

Before he had even fully made it through the door of the clubhouse himself, Jared had raised the butt of his gun over some goon’s head and slammed it down against the junction of neck and shoulder, sending him to the ground in a spasm of agony.

“What the hell—“ hollered De Marco, jumping up from where he was sitting at the bar. He fumbled for his six-shooter, but Jared was faster, crossing the distance in a few quick strides and delivering a quick punch to the guy’s face.

“Shit,” Chris swore under his breath and cocked his own gun at one of De Marco’s henchmen, who had looked as if he was about to make a move on Jared but froze as soon as he found himself staring down the barrel of a 45.

“I wouldn’t try it if I were you, asshole.”

The kid swallowed and froze mid-movement, shooting a frantic glance over at his boss, who wasn't exactly in a better position.

The decisively smaller man stumbled back under the force of Jared’s blow, blood gushing from his nose and dripping down his chin.

Before he got a chance to recover, Jared followed his attack up with a vicious kick to the guy’s kneecap, which elicited a groan of pain as he fell to the floor.

One of De Marco’s girls was scrambling away from the scene, her heels frantically scraping against the linoleum floor as she tried to escape.

Chris took a quick glance around, trying to take out any other imminent threats, but they were lucky. The club was relatively empty.

“Remember me, asshole?” Jared hissed into the guy's face, tightening his fingers around De Marco’s leather gear as they peered into one another’s eyes.

The change in the air was about as subtle as a brick to the face, tension so thick and cloying between them that they were practically choking on it.

“You’re Morgan’s bastard child,” De Marco spat out, blood and spittle flying from his mouth and sprinkling Jared’s face. 

Jared didn’t move to wipe the mess from his cheeks. 

Fucker had the audacity to grin, teeth glinting beneath the crimson that coated them and eyes dancing with malignant intent. “We offed your whore mother.”

“Wrong answer,” Jared snarled, grabbing De Marco by the nape of his neck and slamming his head down on the counter with a sickening crunch of bones, only to drag him back up to his feet by the lapels of his jacket to repeat the motion.

He pressed the muzzle of his Beretta against De Marco’s temple and pulled the safety back with a tell-tale metallic _‘click’_ that caused the bastard to freeze in his threatening grasp.

“I’m gonna make this as easy on you as I can. You tell me which of you sons of bitches went after my guy Chad and who gave them the go-ahead, or I’ll blow your brains all over the counter top.”

Chris watched Jared with wide eyes, taking his cue from his friend but also ready to intervene if things started to get too far out of hand.

If there was one fucking thing they really didn’t need on top of everything else right now, it was a dead body on their hands.

Killing De Marco, or even just injuring him, would have consequences.

And they wouldn’t be of the good kind. So much was for fucking sure.

Jared grabbed the guy by the collar of his shirt and pulled him closer, pressing the mouth of the gun into his forehead with so much force that Chris was willing to bet his skin would bruise from it.

“Jay, man, do you really think—" Chris tried to interfere but Jared was already too far down the road to turn back now and they both knew it.

Jared ignored him as he kept a choking hold on De Marco’s neck, his gun never moving a single inch from where it was aimed.

"Listen up you worthless piece of shit, I could snuff your lights out with only a twitch of my finger and not feel bad about it for even just a _second._  So I’m gonna ask you one more time, did you or did you not have anything to do with the accident?”

De Marco’s eyes were wild with fury as he peered up at Jared from where his head was pressed against the countertop.

“You are a dead man, Padalecki. No matter how this turns out, my men will find you and put an end to your pathetic excuse of a life, they’ll take everything you’ve ever loved and smother it, you hear me?"

"Take everything I've ever loved, huh?" Jared huffed out, looking slightly insane as he kept a vicious grip on the biker's hair. "Guess what... you already did."

Jared was ready to land the final blow when Chris noticed movement out of the corner of his eyes and his heart stuttered to an abrupt halt in his chest.

The sound of a gunshot pierced the air and one of the bar windows exploded into a thousand shards, pieces of glass flying everywhere.

The door to the clubhouse flew open with a loud bang and Chris whirled around to aim his gun at the unannounced newcomer.

“Get down!” Jared yelled and shoved Chris to the side, using De Marko as a human shield against the shower of bullets.

Chris dove for the floor and fired at the guy in the doorway, burying a bullet in the man’s calf and sending him falling to the ground with a low grunt of pain.

The guy's gun went flying and skittered to a halt a few feet away from where Jared stood.

“What are you waiting for? Kill those motherfuckers, Leroy!” De Marco roared, unable to wrench himself free from Jared’s forceful hold or dislodge the weapon that was still pressed to his head.

Leroy- Chris supposed that must have been the mountain of a man he had just shot, was crawling across the floor trying to retrieve his gun, but Jared slammed his boot down on the weapon before the bulky man could reach it.

He grabbed a broken bottle of gin from the floor and smashed it down on Leroy’s fist, eliciting a garbled cry from the gnarly biker when the sharp glass dug into the back of his hand. 

“Get out of the way!" Jared ordered and Chris rolled to the side to give the taller man room. Not wasting a second, Jared grabbed a handful of De Marco’s greasy black hair before bringing the guy’s head down hard against the corner of the bar and knocking him unconscious. Then he landed a swift kick to Leroy’s stomach, knocking him back against the floor.

Stubbornly, the guy tried to straighten himself up, but Jared finishing him off with a second kick to the face.

Satisfied by the way Leroy slumped to the ground, Chris allowed himself to take a steadying breath to calm his frantic heartbeat down.

Jared was still standing there, chest heaving as he stared down at the bodies littering the floor, four of them in total, not counting the girl that was crying somewhere in the corner of the bar.

“So that was your glorious fucking plan?" Chris growled out in frustration once the initial shock had worn off.

They had just come into the Reapers' headquarters and smashed the whole fucking place, beaten De Marco six ways to Sunday, shot one guy in the fucking leg and it had all been for nothing.

“Jeff is going to fucking kill you,” Chris rubbed his forehead, cringing when he felt the sticky remnants of blood beneath his fingertips. “Fuck Jared, what the hell were you thinking? This is bad, man, it’s really fucking bad.”

They had wreaked havoc on this place, had given the Reapers a reason to retaliate, even if they turned out to have nothing to do with Chad’s accident at all.

Jared shoved his gun back into the back of his waistband.

“Look at the TV,” he said in a ragged voice, pointing towards the small plasma in the far corner of the room.

Chris frowned as he squinted up at the screen, his eyes widening a little at what he saw.

“Is that…?” his voice teetered off into a shocked silence.

A black and white recording had been paused midway, the footage showing an interstate. An ambulance and several cars were visible from the camera angle at which the film had been taken.

In the middle of the road, was Chad’s pro street bike, dented and fragmented from the crash, but undeniably his.

“Fuck,” Chris breathed out, squeezing his eyes shut and knocking his head back against the wooden furniture in frustration.

He lashed out at the nearest piece of furniture and kicked a bar stool so hard it fell over, crashing to the floor with a loud bang. “FUCK!”

Deafening silence settled over them in the aftermath of Chris’ outburst and a few seconds passed before Jared stepped over one of the bloody bodies that littered the floor and towards the girl who had her face buried in her hands, mascara smeared all over her cheeks as she tried to back away. “N-no please… please _don’t_ —“

Jared crouched down, lifting his gun painfully slow, making sure she saw it for the unspoken threat it was.

Chris tensed a little against the counter, knowing Jared wouldn’t hurt her and yet feeling strangely concerned about what his friend had planned.

“You know Lucian?” Jared asked.

The girl nodded her head.

“Good,” Jared tilted his head to the side, motioning for Leroy, De Marco and the younger guy with a jerk of his gun. “You related to any of these scumbags or just screwing them?”

She whimpered and Chris grimaced. “Leave her alone, man. She doesn’t know anything.”

Judging from her short skirt and heels, it was pretty clear that she was just a hooker. She wouldn't be able to give them any information and even if she did, they have always had an unspoken rule about not touching women.

“Answer the fucking question,” Jared snapped, voice cracking through the air like a whip.  
  
The girl flinched back, her whole body trembling with fear. “I-I—De Marco is one of my clients—I don’t even know th-them—I swear to god.“

“Okay, so here’s what’s gonna happen,” Jared calmly started. “You’ll stay here until Lucian and the rest of the gang arrives and you’re gonna tell them that they better fucking pray for Chad Michael Murray to survive the accident or we’re gonna come back.”

She nodded her head frantically, wiping at the mess of tears and make, up that covered her face and Jared straightened up again, bestowing her with a last look in warning.

“Now when I say come back, I mean we’re gonna tear this whole place down and we’re gonna kill every single one of those fuckers for good, understood?”

Chris tugged at Jared’s sleeve and then frowned a little when he saw the taller man flinch at the touch, feeling oily crimson beneath his fingertips.

_Had Jared gotten hurt without him noticing?_

Before Chris could ask his friend if he was alright, Jared had started moving towards the door.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

 

 

"Hey, psst, Jensen! Over here—"

Jensen was so engulfed in his Molecular Biology class, that he hadn't noticed Tommy sneaking up on him from the side.

How the overgrown dark-haired sasquatch had managed to weasel his way around a few dozen students to come sit in the row behind him was beyond Jensen, but he decided not to dwell on it.

"What are you doing here?" he asked under his breath, looking around to see a few of his fellow students scowling at them for the disturbance.

Jensen shot a furtive glance towards the lecturer, making sure his back was still turned towards the blackboard as he continued to talk about how to covalently bind membrane proteins, before refocusing his attention back to where Tom was leaning over the table, his long limbs cramped up ridiculously in the tiny seating space.

"Shouldn't you be in class?"

"I am in class." 

Jensen rolled his eyes. "So Molecular Biochemistry is part of your syllabus now? Sheesh... I had no idea."

"Okay, maybe I ditched Advanced International Trading to apologize to you, but it's not like I'm missing out on anything important and Mike could totally write my paper for me if I ask him real nice."

Tom wriggled his eyebrows at him, making it abundantly clear what 'asking real nice' would entail and Jensen tossed a piece of paper from his transcript copies at Tom's head, mouthing the word _'slut'_ with a gleeful twinkle in his eyes.

"Hey!" Tom frowned in mock-indignation when a girl with a ponytail and glasses in the row behind them shushed him with a deathly glower. 

They both fell silent for a second, pretending to listen to the lecture.

_"...in order to express a protein with at least one transmembrane domain or a stretch of 24 or more hydrophobic amino acid residues, the transmembrane domain will need to anchor the protein on the cell surface membrane..."_

"Listen, I'm sorry I made a scene because of what happened," Tommy whispered after a moment, breaking the quiet again.

Jensen didn't turn around to face him, not wanting to draw even more unwanted attention onto them.

"You were trying to help Jared out because you have a heart that's bigger than your ginormous brain and I get it. Just... I was really worried when you disappeared."

"I know," Jensen rubbed his temples, eyes softening with understanding as he sent a look over his shoulder to lock their gazes. "I should have let you know what was going on."

"Yeah, you should have. But you said you were sorry and I can't hold what happened against you forever. I know you tried to do the right thing and if you say this Jared guy is alright, I’ll trust your judgment. Just... be careful, okay?"

Jensen let his eyes drop to his notebook, biting his lower lip.

"I'm always careful," he murmured with a small smile and apparently that was the exact second when his lecturer finally seemed to have had enough of their whispering.

"Mr. Ackles, would you mind stepping outside the room for your private conversations?" the lecturer asked with a dark frown on his face and about thirty students turned and twisted around to look at him.

Jensen's eyes widened a little, body tensing when his lecturer raised a demanding eyebrow. "Unless you would like to add something to my lecture, that is?"

It was an obvious ruse, meant to embarrass him in front of the whole lecture hall and under different circumstances Jensen might have just apologized to brush off the unwanted attention, but for some reason, he felt a little rebellious today.

"Well, actually…” Jensen sat up straight in his seat and squared his shoulders. “You haven't mentioned that the intracellular sorting process could be enhanced through the use of a prepro signal sequence on the N-terminus protein.”

The lecturer was visibly taken aback by his answer,  a low rumble of whispers broke out among the students.

They were starting to realize that Jensen hadn’t only listened to the lecture and understood every single thing that had been discussed during class, but he had also had a far better grasp on the depth of the subject matter at hand than the lecturer had given him credit for.

Judging from the sour expression on the guy’s face, he didn’t appreciate Jensen’s cocky response one bit.

“It would also help the secretion of the protein once it's matured, but I'm sure you were just building up to that...” Jensen added and Tommy burst out laughing in the seat next to him.

“Well, seeing as how you are obviously ahead of class and not particularly interested in what I have to say, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the room, gentlemen.”

Jensen suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. One of the few drawbacks of studying at a pretentious private school was having to put up with an extremely conservative teaching board.

"Alright, we're going, we're going," Tom shook his head, amused smile still playing his lips as he gathered his bags and untangled himself from the seat.

He winked at one of the girls who was giving him a dreamy look from a nearby seat before shoving his way past the other students.

The door closed behind him with an audible click and Tom and Jensen looked at each other for a second or two before bursting out with laughter.

“Man that was great! Did you see the look on his face?”

“He’s gonna hate me forever,” Jensen sighed, a shameless grin on his lips.

“Sorry I got you into trouble.”

“You didn’t,” Jensen waved him off. “It’s not like he can flunk me for being a smartass.”

“If he gives you trouble because of what happened, let me know. I’ll have him nailed for discrimination faster than you can say the word ‘suspended’. Pretty sure he can’t even legally throw us out of class like that, unless...“

“Tom, it’s fine,” Jensen chuckled, bumping his friend’s shoulder. “No reason to get the guy fired just because he doesn’t like me,”

Tom snorted. "Yeah well I'm shocked. Who would have thought that the great Jensen Ackles would ever get thrown out of class for misbehavior? Everybody's favorite student disliked by the newest addition to the teaching board? It's an outrage!"

"Alright cut it out, idiot," Jensen snorted, before slinging his backpack over one shoulder and jogging down the hallway. "I’ll head down to the field, see if I can join the boys at training or something.”

"Yeah, you do that," Tommy laughed, shaking his head. "Go make yourself useful after you’ve slacked so much in class."

Jensen rolled his eyes and flipped Tom off before vanishing around the corner, a warm smile still lingering on his lips

 

 

 

Misha was paying the pizza boy while Danneel sat on the floor, painting her toenails and Mike and Tom were deeply engrossed in a discussion about amendment rights.

“So while I’m not saying that the court would acknowledge the fact that a prestigious university like this one could regulate speech to counteract an invasion of—“

“Wait a second,“ Jensen frowned, toweling off his shower-soaked hair as he stepped out of the bathroom. “Are you two still going on about the whole thing with Dengler?”

"Yep, they are," Danneel sighed in frustration.

“Tom quit embellishing facts, alright? There is no law that establishes a ‘hurt-feelings’ defense for students who violate the code of professional conduct in the classroom."

“You are the one who’s embellishing facts,” Tom gave back grumpily, realizing he had lost the argument and Jensen snorted out his laughter just as Misha returned with the family-sized pepperoni pizza they had ordered.

“Seriously, Tommy?” Misha teased, before setting the pizza carton on the couch table. “You gotta work on your comebacks.”

“No kidding,” Danneel chimed in from her spot on the floor, eyes still trained onto the movie they were half-heartedly watching.

“Give him a break,” Jensen sighed, flopping back against the pillows. “Nobody stands a chance against Mike in an argument.”

Mike wriggled his eyebrows and Tom retaliated by hitting his face with a pillow. They started an impromptu pillow fight that lasted for about five seconds before Tom had somehow managed to straddle Mike’s hips and their playful banter quickly turned into heated kissing.

“God you two are so in love it’s sickening,” Danneel teased with a good-natured eye roll, to which they responded by making out even heavier against the pillows of the couch. 

Jensen grabbed a dark blanket from the armrest and tossed it over the tangled bodies with a chuckle.

“How was practice, Jenny?” Misha piped up in an effort to drown out the disturbing noises coming from the couple beside them.

“It was good,” the younger man gave back instantly, flexing his sore muscles a little as if to check if he could still move them after the heavy workout session he had put in earlier.

Jensen had signed up for a whole bunch of sports classes when he had started studying at Harvard, but the one he had doubtlessly enjoyed the most was lacrosse.

It was an extremely challenging sport, training your reflexes, your agility as well as your stamina and being quite brutal on top of that.

Jensen wasn’t exactly the type to get involved in fights or engage in physical violence unless there was no way around it, but every now and then it felt good to let off some steam on the field.

He loved the feeling of community, the strength in numbers, loved the feeling of getting the air knocked from his lungs or tackling someone to the ground- the rush of blood in his ears every time he caught the ball and aimed for a goal.

Over the past four years, Jensen had prided himself in winning some games by scoring the final goals and climbing up the rank of players in his cohort.

But with a schedule as tight as his, it was hard to find the time to keep up with training.

“Didn't realize how much I missed it until we kicked some freshman ass today,” Jensen grinned before taking a bite from his slice of pizza.

Tom tucked the blanket down from his head, lips kiss swollen and hair tousled. Misha chucked a piece of his pizza crust at his forehead only to watch it bounce off his temple.

“Asshole,” Tom scoffed, before returning his full attention to Jensen. “Is Matt coming over to join us?”

Just like that, the smile vanished from Jensen’s lips and he choked a little on his food, coughing as he tried to dislodge a chunk of dough from his throat.

“Woah there, you alright?” Mike asked with a concerned frown on his face.

Jensen coughed a few more times for good measure before he fumbled for words. “No, actually I didn’t exactly tell him we were hanging out. I mean… he met me after practice, so—“

“After practice, huh?” Danneel teased, flicking the collar of his shirt back to reveal a purple hickey just below Jensen’s pulse point.

“Seriously?” Jensen growled, tugging the fabric back into place when the group of friends broke out in cat calls and whistles.

“So did you guys finally do it, huh? Did you have steaming hot sex in the locker room?" Danneel mocked.

Jensen groaned, tossing his wet towel in her face. “' _Do it'_? What are you, twelve? It’s none of your fucking business what we were doing in the locker room.”

“So you admit that you did stuff together,” Mike smirked, the lawyer inside of him shining through as he held Jensen's words against him.

“You know what, shut up, all of you,” Jensen shook his head, irritated by his friend’s teasing. “I didn't tell him to come over because I was planning to stop by St. Andrews later tonight, check in on Chad, see how he's doing."

“Uhu,” Danneel hummed with obvious disbelief in her voice and before Jensen could do anything to prevent it from happening, she snatched his cell phone from his jeans pocket and browsed through his messages.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed, holding the glowing screen up for everyone to see. “You texted him! You are gonna meet with this Jared guy!"

"You've got to be kidding me," Tom groaned against the side of Mike's neck, the two of them still tangled together on the couch. 

"It's on the way, alright?" Jensen shot back defensively, before getting up from the couch. "I'm only gonna stop there for a second to drop off his clothes."

"You have the guy's clothes?" Tom exclaimed. "I thought nothing happened last night!"

"That's my boy," Misha rooted, holding out a palm for him to high-five, but Jensen only glared at him in response.

"Yeah you know what? You're a bunch of pervs. He gave me some of his clothes to sleep in and I'm gonna return them. End of story."

"Because Jared won't survive the night without his favorite pair of slacks?" Danneel winked up at him with a laugh. "Aww, don't pout, baby. I'm sure Jared's gonna be ecstatic about your spontaneous visit at—" she glanced at her watch and smiled. "Nine-thirty."

Jensen's face fell a little at the realization that it was probably inappropriate to show up at a stranger's door so late at night without an apparent reason. 

"I'm being ridiculous, aren't I?" Jensen sighed, sinking back down onto the cushions.

Misha opened his mouth in what was doubtlessly a snappy comeback, but Mike beat him to it. "I haven't met this Jared guy, but he doesn't strike me as someone who goes to bed early."

"Just make sure not to show him your love bites or he might go all caveman on your ass," Misha smirked and Jensen cuffed his head in retaliation before snatching his car keys from the nightstand.

"I'll be back in a few hours," he said and slipped on his tight navy jacket. "Don't wait up."

 

 

 

“The fuck happened to you?”

To say that Jeff was angry would have been a massive understatement.

The man was fuming as he grabbed Jared by the shoulders and pulled him inside the foyer of his house.

“Jay, you better start talking right this fucking second or I’ll—“

“Watch his arm,” Chris grunted as he slipped into the dimly lit hallway.

He wavered in place as he kicked the door closed behind him with a muddy boot. "Bullet grazed it."

Yeah, Chris had no clue how it happened or when, he certainly hadn't heard Jared cry out in pain or show any other outward signs of discomfort, but then again, that bastard had always been good at hiding his injuries.

To be honest, Chris wasn't even sure if the bullet wound had registered in Jared's adrenaline-dazed mind until they had been on their way back, speeding down the interstate as if the devil himself was hot on their heels.

As soon as they had stopped, Jared had all but slid off the seat, clutching at his arm, his whole face contorted in pain and his lower lip bitten raw from having put so much strain on the injured limb.

Chris hadn't realized what the hell was going on until that stubborn idiot had exacerbated his injury further by riding his own bike home with a vicious flesh wound.

"What? How?" Jeff’s eyes were wild when he noticed the trail of blood leaking out from beneath the sleeve of Jared's jacket. He snatched Jared's right arm and tore his leather aside to examine the wound.

A relatively deep cut was running squarely across the tribal tattoo sleeve that adorned Jared's tan skin, and Jeff paled a little at the sight.

"Fucking hell, Jay," he pressed out from behind clenched teeth. “How did this happen?"

“It's nothing,” Jared wrenched his arm free from Jeff's prodding fingers. He staggered a little as he made his way toward the cabinet in the living room where they kept the first aid kit and alcohol. "Leroy can't aim for shit. Fucker missed me by a mile."

“Your arm tells a different story,” Chris replied before grabbing a bottle of gin from the cabinet next to Jared and breaking the cap.

He took a long swig and clenched his teeth against the dragging burn down his throat.

“Wait a second,” Jeff grasped Jared's wrist, his face paling rapidly in the dim glow of the hallway light. "Leroy as in _Leroy Demasquez?_ That the guy you're talking about?”

"You know anyone else who goes by that fucking name?" Jared retorted, jerking his hand out of Jeff’s grasp.

Jeff's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed and for a moment it looked as if he was going to throttle Jared with his bare hands.

"And why, pray tell, would Leroy fucking Demasquez be shooting at you?"

Chris rubbed a hand over his jaw. He knew this argument was going to escalate as soon as Jared dropped the bombshell on Jeff.

"Because me and Chris paid him a visit in the clubhouse."

There was a beat of silence, as realization seeped into Jeff's gaze, and shock settled on his rugged features.

“Jared,” Jeffrey closed his eyes in denial, scrubbing a hand over his face before he opened them up again to stare at the younger man. “Tell me you didn't.”

Jared held the older man's gaze, jaw locked and eyes defiant as he let the silence speak for itself.

Chris took a large swig of gin, knowing whatever came next wouldn't be pretty.

“What the fucking hell, Jay? Are you out of your goddamn' mind? Walking straight into their clubhouse and smashing the whole fucking place for no particular reason?”

“ _No fucking reason_?” Jared shoved Jeff hard enough to send him stumbling back. His nostrils were flaring, chest heaving for air and cheeks flushed with anger and blood loss.

It was clear to see that Jared was unraveling.

“So going after Chad, chasing him off the road wasn't reason enough? Killing mom wasn't reason enough?”

An unmistakable flicker of grief crossed Jeff's features at the mention of Mary but being he quickly regained his composure. Her death was still a sore topic for both of them.

“Jay,” he breathed, running fingers through his hair. "Your mother's death—"

“No, Jeff, he’s right,” Chris interrupted, pulling a disc from his jacket pocket and holding it out for the older man. “They had footage of the accident in the clubhouse. It’s all on there, every fucking second. They set him up, man. They tried to kill—“ 

Chris was cut off by a loud banging sound on the front door.

All three of them instantly froze as they stared at the foyer.

Jared was the first one to reach for his gun, but Jeffrey held up a hand, stopping him mid-movement.

He wordlessly shook his head before grabbing his own gun from the waistband of his jeans and moving towards the doorway.

Chris’ heart was in his throat, cold sweat breaking out on his skin as he peered outside in fearful anticipation.

Had someone followed them from the clubhouse?

Chris had known there would be consequences, but he hadn't expected it to happen so soon.

He got up from the couch, taking a step forward to put himself between Jeff and Jared because there was no way Jared could properly defend himself in a fight with an untreated injury weakening his state.

He would probably get an earful about the protective gesture later on, but Chris would take a pissed-off Jared over a dead Jared any day.

Jeff cocked his gun, holding it to the side as he wrapped his fingers around the doorknob.

The sight that awaited him on the other side of the door wasn’t exactly what he had expected.

On the doormat, looking for all intents and purposes as if he'd just come off the fucking catwalk of a fashion show, (seriously, what the hell was the deal with this kid?) stood the college boy who had helped them in the hospital the night before.

His green eyes were wide and shining with insecurity as he peered up at them from outside, one hand tangled in his dirty blond hair while the other one held a plastic bag with what appeared to be clothes.

“Uhm, hi. Sorry for bothering you. I was on my way to the hospital and I thought I’d stop by to bring you this,“ he held out the bag of clothes and Jeff let out a sigh, stuffing his gun back into the waistband of his jeans.

“Yeah, listen. Jensen, is it? It’s not exactly the best time right now,” Jeff said in a brusque tone, obviously trying to get rid of the kid as soon as possible.

A flash of disappointment crossed college boy's features and Chris felt a little bad for the guy.

"Okay, yeah, sure," Jensen was visibly taken aback by the dismissal. He was shuffling his feet, teeth digging into his bottom lip. "I'll be on my way then."

"Jensen, wait," Jared called out and Chris suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at the taller man when he stepped into the doorway and reached out to capture Jensen's wrist.

The younger man instantly stilled his movements, bottle green eyes widening in shock when he spotted the vicious looking scratches across Jared's cheek from where the splinters of glass had nicked his skin.

"God, Jared..." he breathed out, reaching up to cup Jared's jaw in a feather-light caress. "What happened? Are you okay?"

The raw display of concern in Jensen's touch and voice was so real, the intimacy in the gesture so undeniable that it threw them all for a second.

It was a pretty strong reaction for somebody who had only just met Jared a day ago.

And what was even more surprising was Jared's lack of protest at the gesture, the out-of-character way he seemed to almost lean into the touch before lightly tangling their fingers to pull it away from his cheek.

"What are you doing here so late at night? You shouldn't be out alone in this neighborhood."

“Jared, what—“ Jensen broke himself off abruptly when his eyes caught on the blood coating the back of his hand and trickling down his fingers. His breath stuttered at the sight. "What happened to your arm?"

"He got himself shot," Jeff supplied, having run out of patience with the sickeningly sweet reunion between the two men. "Now would you mind saving the doe-eyed staring for later before one of the neighbors sees all that blood and calls the cops on us? You can keep drooling all over one another once we've patched you up.”

Jensen flushed when Jared pulled him inside the house. It took a moment for him to regain his bearings but just when Chris thought the guy would tuck tail and run back to his white-picket-fence life, a look of determination settled on his handsome features.

"The bullet still in?" he asked all matter-of-factly, before dropping the bag of clothes in a corner and pulling out of his navy jacket.

Chris rolled his eyes at the way Jared shamelessly roamed the kid's body with his eyes. He idly wondered if these two ever stopped to realize how often they gaped at each other like a pair of idiots.

"It barely even grazed him," he snorted, before dropping his own gun on the coffee table next to the staircase.

Jensen stilled at the sight of the weapon, taking the information in silently.

Then he seemed to rip himself out of his rigor, coming to stand in front of Jeffrey.

The transition from bashful and insecure to no-nonsense was as subtle as a slap in the face, whatever switch had just been flicked in Jensen's head, it was almost like looking at a different person and Chris wasn't sure what to make of it.

"I'm assuming you have a damn good reason for why he isn't in the hospital right now, getting treated by someone with a degree and a shitload of experience under their belt. I'm not gonna ask you for what happened tonight. But once I'm done with him—" Jensen's jaw muscle twitched, his whole posture rigid. "He so much as shows the slightest signs of infection? I'm wheeling him off to the EMR, you got me?"

Chris blinked up at Jensen for a second, looking completely thunderstruck by the guy's sudden courage- by the thread of steel interlacing his words as he made a stance. It only took one glance into Jeff's direction to see the massive storm clouds on the older man's face.

"Here we go..." Chris muttered to no one in particular.

"Are you threatening me?" Jeff's eyes narrowed, his tone turning ice-cold as he backed Jensen up against the wall of the hallway. "Who the hell do you think you are, boy?"

Something roared to life in Jensen's eyes at Jeffrey's response and it wasn't pretty.

"I'm the guy who's a phone call away from sicking the cops on you for keeping a gunshot wound unreported," he spat back, not giving an inch.

Chris had to hand it to him, the boy had guts.

Jeffrey took a threatening step forward, fingers balled into fists by his side.

"I'd like to see you try, college boy," he growled out, but before he could do or say anything else, Jared broke the fight up by pushing himself between the two men.

"Jeff that's it. Leave him the fuck alone." Chris didn't miss the hint of protectiveness in his friend's tone, the odd glint of fury in his eyes when Jared stood up for a near stranger as if the guy hadn't just threatened to turn them in.

"You heard what he fucking said!"

"He also said he wasn't gonna ask any questions or call an ambulance unless I get a fever, so calm the fuck down," Jared insisted, before shooting a glance back over his broad shoulders to where Jensen was standing. "Now can somebody please just take care of the fucking wound before I iron it shut myself?"

"And how are you gonna do that, huh?" Chris snorted, knowing his friend was only half-joking. "You can't even iron a fucking shirt."

"Nobody's gonna iron anything," Jensen brought the discussion to an end as he dropped his car keys on the table next to Chris' gun. "That's about the last thing you wanna do right now."

"What are you suggesting?" Jeff crossed his arms in front of his chest and cocked a demanding eyebrow at the younger man.

Jensen seemed to think about it for a moment, then he let out a soft breath. "Jared, I'm gonna need you to take off your jacket and lie down somewhere with your arm elevated. Chris, go get a bowl with warm water, a pair of scissors and some towels. You guys wouldn't happen to have hydrogen peroxide or iodine in the house?"

When Jensen was met with three pairs of equally puzzled eyes, he sighed. "Oxidanyl is another name for it or dioxane. It's a clear, acidic liquid often used as a dilute solution or—"

"Clean fuel," Jared concluded with a slight wince as Chris and Jeff guided him over to the couch and started working the smooth black leather off his shoulders.

"I'm gonna go check the garage for propellants," Jeff hurried off into the kitchen, the screen door banging in his wake, while Chris fumbled around awkwardly with the hem of Jared's blood-soaked shirt in an attempt to peel it off.

Jared bit back a grunt when the fabric brushed over the 3-inch long groove on his upper arm, tattooed skin torn and jagged around the inflamed wound.

"Fucking watch it!" Jared grunted as he tossed his head back against the backrest of the couch, the cords of his neck standing out beneath the clammy pallor of his skin.

"Here, let me," Jensen was nudging Chris to the side and clambering on top of the couch- his knees bracketing Jared's legs on either side as he grabbed the shirt with both hands and ripped it in half.

"Woah, what the hell, dude?" Chris sputtered, stumbling back and bringing an arm up to cover his eyes. "How about you fucking warn a guy before you blind him."

"If you'd gotten me the scissors like I've asked you to, you wouldn't have had to witness this," Jensen didn't look up from the task at hand, being too busy to tear off the remaining shreds of fabric.

His eyes settled on Jared's chest with something akin to reverence as his fingers brushed over the phoenix tattoo that was spread across the whole expanse of the man's toned chest and abdomen.

“I still don’t get why you need to give him the full cowgirl. I mean couldn’t you have just done the shirt-ripping and be done with it?” 

"Now where would be the fun in that?" Jared smirked up at him with a cocked eyebrow, his large hands settling on each side of Jensen's narrow hips as he held the younger man steady.

“Chris, go make yourself useful and do what I told you, man,” Jensen ordered, causing Chris to run off towards the bathroom with a grumpy murmur of protest.

"Gotta say, I kinda enjoy this new determined and bossy side of you,” Jared chuckled.

“So all of this- from the second you have seen me at that show to the moment you came bursting through the door tonight- it was all a ploy to get me naked, wasn't it?"

"Please," Jensen rolled his eyes with a teasing twitch of his lips. "Like I would need a ploy for _that_."

Jared chuckled, not denying it for a second until Jensen started rolling off of Jared's body.

He hadn't even managed to move halfway off, before Jared pulled him back up by the wrists, holding him in place. " _Stay_. I kind of like you where you are."

Just as Jensen was about to reply, Chris' voice drifted in from somewhere close to the kitchen. "You guys fucking decent in there?"

"No!" Jared yelled at the same time as Jensen responded with "Yes!"

"Alright, you know what, I'm not gonna come in there before the two of you are standing at least 10 feet away from each other."

Jared snorted but released Jensen's wrists. "It's gonna be hard for him to treat me from that far across the fucking room. Now get your ass back in here with that water before it turns cold."

Chris grumbled something under his breath, but came back inside with his hair pulled pack in a ponytail and the sleeves of his shirt curled back as he carried a pot with water over to the couch, balancing some towels on his arms.

When Jeff entered the room a few seconds after, triumphantly raising a nondescript glass bottle with clear liquid up in the air, Jensen shared a meaningful look with Jared, before grabbing the bottle to disinfect his hands. "You know this is gonna sting like a mother?"

"I'm aware," Jared clenched and unclenched his jaw in anticipation.

"On three," Jensen quietly prepared him for the inevitable, dabbing one of the washcloths Chris had brought with the hydrogen solution. "One... Two—"

Jared barely managed to bite back a scream when Jensen dabbed at the wound with the washcloth.

“That should do it for now," Jensen finally conceded, before removing the cloth and looking up at Jeff. "Got any antibiotic cream or ointment?"

Jeff dug around in a few drawers before handing Jensen a half-used tube of Neosporin. "That work?"

"Yeah, that's great," Jensen took it and smeared a liberal amount over the sensitive edges of the wound before covering it up with a sterile pad and wrapping gauze around Jared's arm until it was thick enough for the blood to stop oozing through the outer layers.

"That's it?" Chris burst out after a second or two, looking down at the dressing and back up at Jensen with a frown on his face. "That's all you're gonna do?"

"What did you expect? Some voodoo magic? A field surgery?" Jensen asked sarcastically.

"I don't know, man, stitches at least?" Chris hazarded with a shrug of his shoulder.

"Without the proper medical equipment, closing the wound would increase chances of bacterial infection, so  don't recommend it for now. The graze isn't all too deep, so it should close on its own, but it will certainly leave an impressive scar to add to the collection."

Jensen's eyes flickered over Jared's tattooed chest and toned abdomen, where dozens of faded scars had broken the steady lines and curves of the phoenix tattoo, the lighter skin tissue standing out in stark contrast to the black spread of feathers that adorned the man's sternum.

"I'm gonna go and get him some water," Jeff said, his joints popping a little as he got up from the floor.

"And I'll head upstairs, get some shuteye if you don't need me here," Chris was about to leave, but Jensen called him back. "Wait, man. Let me check you over first."

"What, why me? I'm not the one looking like death warmed over."

"You actually do, it's just no different from usually," Jared returned in a throaty voice, only to get flipped off by Chris in return.

"Yeah yeah, laugh it up fucker. Just do me a favor and keep it in your pants for a change. I'm really not interested in hearing you two going at it in the middle of the—"

"Dude, would you get lost already?" Jared cut him off and Chris chuckled before vanishing up the stairs.

It was quiet for a few seconds before Jeff came back into the living room with a glass of water and some painkillers. "It's late. You boys should get some rest. You’re welcome to stay the night, Jensen, if that’s what you want. Or I could give you a ride back to town if you'd prefer that."

"I drove here, remember?" Jensen smiled up at Jeff from his position on the floor.

Jeff nodded, running both of his hands over his ashen face. "Well, it's up to you. Feel free to use the shower if you decide to stay the night. I’ll camp down here, make sure he doesn’t spike a fever.”

Jared squinted up at the older man with half-lidded eyes, the blood loss, pain and drugs in his system finally taking their toll on him. "'m fucking fine. No need to babysit."

"Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on him and wake you if anything changes. There's really no need for both of us to stay up.”

Jeff hesitated for a second, obviously reluctant to leave this near, stranger alone with his injured son, but soon his weariness won over his skepticism and he wandered off with a last meaningful look at their unwelcome guest. He seemed to visibly struggle with the words that were on the tip of his tongue, but somehow he managed to utter them after a second's hesitation. "Thanks for your help tonight, kid. Come get me if anything's wrong. And don't open the door or sit in front of the window."  
  
A shiver wracked Jensen's spine at the implications of Jeff's words. Don't sit too close to the window practically translated to 'Don't make yourself an easy target' and if Jensen had one functioning brain cell left that comment, coupled with everything else that had happened tonight, should have sent him running back the safety of his Harvard dorm room.

Instead, he just swallowed and glanced back down at Jared, who looked pale and oddly vulnerable as he lay curled up on the couch. "I will.."

As soon as Jeffrey left them, Jensen got up from the floor and gathered up the bag of clothes before pulling out the sweatpants and shirt he had meant to return to Jared.

"So…" Jensen asked, turning around and giving Jared his back, before slipping his shirt off his head in one fluent motion. “You going to explain to me what happened tonight?”

He shivered a little as his chest was exposed to the cool air in the room and then gasped when a strong arm circled around his waist from behind. “I thought you weren’t gonna ask any questions.”

"You shouldn’t be up,” Jensen gave back, even when every fiber of him tingled with approval at the way Jared's bare chest slotted against his back.

He allowed himself to bask in the steady beat of life that thrummed against his spine before rationality won over the surge of want in his system. "Jared—"

"That hickey on your neck," Jared's voice was like a drop of ice water against his skin, sending a violent shiver down Jensen's spine.

His arm was still locked around Jensen's waist, long fingers gently ghosting over a particularly sensitive spot above the jut of his hipbone.  
  
Jensen flinched a little and looked down to find a huge bruise blossoming across the particularly sore area of his body.

Memories slammed back into him at the touch, he had been tackled on the field and taken a blow to his left side. Nothing too serious, especially when you were used to these kinds of injuries on a regular basis. But to someone who didn't know it any better, the angry-looking mark could easily lead to the wrong assumptions.

"That from the same guy who left the bruise on your skin?"

"It’s not," Jensen gave back quickly, making sure to meet Jared's eyes over his shoulder to convey the truth of the statement. "I'm on the lacrosse team, Jared. It's a physical sport. That’s all there is to it, okay? Matt wouldn’t— he’s not that kind of guy… "

“Right, _Matt,_ how could I forget?” Jared snorted, locking his jaw in a flare of undisguised jealousy. "He ever does anything that you don't like or didn't agree to and you let me know, you understand?"

"And then what?" Jensen demanded with a shake of his head. "You'll shoot him? Is that how the Black Legion resolves problems?"

Jared instantly stilled against his back, arm dropping from around his waist as he took a step back.

His eyes were flashing with murderous intent when he spoke, tone dropping to a threatening growl. “The guy ever fucking lays a finger on you against your will and a bullet to the brain will be the last of his worries.”

Jensen held his breath for a second, the force of Jared's words, the undeniable threat behind them, blowing his mind. He shivered involuntarily at the possessiveness- the cold finality of what Jared had just said and pointedly ignored the irrational pool of heat that had started to build in his stomach.

There was not a single doubt in his mind that the rogue biker would follow out on the threat without a second’s hesitation if Matt (or anyone else) ever hurt him like that.

Swallowing, Jensen held the man's piercing stare. "I'm not stupid, Jared. Your injury today was clearly the result of a gunfight and for that to happen just one day after your friend lands himself in the hospital, I'd have to be fucking dumb not to draw the connection," he let out a shaky sigh, rubbing his jaw before sitting down on the edge of the couch table.

"It's a lot more complicated than you might think," Jared gave back tiredly. "And the less you know, the better, trust me."

"Jay..." Jensen didn't know when or how it had happened, but somewhere along the line, he had taken a liking to Jared's nickname and the comfortable way it rolled off his tongue. It felt right to say the three letters out loud.

"I've done nothing but trust you this past couple of days. Don't you think it's time for you to return the favor?"

Jared was silent for a long time, long enough for Jensen to think that he wasn’t going to say anything at all.

Then he reached up to run his fingers along the side of Jensen’s jaw, mapping out the sleek cut of his chin and sending another shiver down the younger man’s spine. “Let’s go to my room.”

“Jared,” Jensen protested quietly, his voice breaking as he fanned out a palm against the taller man’s bare chest and gently but decidedly shoved him back.

“To _sleep_ ,” Jared clarified and didn’t give the younger man any time to put up a fight when he made his way towards his childhood room, all the while keeping his fingers curled around Jensen’s wrist and dragging him along.

The room looked pretty much exactly like it did when Jensen had last seen it, lit by a small, wall-mounted nightlight that cast an orange halo onto the king-sized bed taking up most of the space.

A few books and DVD’s lay scattered across the floor, discarded pieces of clothing practically covering every furniture piece to a point where Jensen couldn’t even tell what was hidden beneath.

Jared kicked off his shoes and flopped back against the black covers on his bed, his long hair a wild mess as he reached up to card his fingers through the unruly mane.

Jensen stood motionless, never taking his eyes of the biker in front of him.

“C’mon, I won’t bite,” Jared urged him on, patting the empty space beside him on the bed in invitation.

Jensen worried his lower lip, but he only hesitated for a moment before sitting down on the mattress opposite from Jared and settling back against the pillows.

“Relax,” the dark haired man soothed when he noticed that the guarded look that resided in Jensen’s eyes.

He rolled over, bringing their bodies even closer together before draping his good arm around Jensen’s waist in a loose embrace.

“This okay?” he breathed out, asking permission to hold Jensen close- to slot their chests together like it was an old habit- something practiced over years.

Jensen melted against his side almost instantly, head settling comfortably against the tender spot between the man’s neck and collar bone, fingers reaching up to lightly trace the ink on Jared’s defined abs. “Yeah...”

He knew it shouldn’t feel this right- knew that everything he had witnessed today, the guns, the obvious illegal activities and the gang’s refusal to involve authorities- should have had him running for the hills and yet here he was- nestled against this capricious biker boy with the dazzling smile.

And if the erratic beat of his heart- the electrifying tingle in his fingertips was anything to go by, there was no other place on the surface of the planet he’d rather be at in this moment.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!!! Sorry for the long wait, I really hope the extra-long and slightly cheesy update can make up for the delay and lack of j2 in the previous chapter! Please let me know what you think and drop me a few lines with wishes, concerns or comments regarding the story. ;) Big thanks also to my beta reader TheBoys who puts up with my late-night writing full of grammar mistakes and half-finished sentences. <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for mentions of injuries and bad language

** **

** **

 

 **Open Road  
** **Chapter 7**

Jared awoke to the sound of pencil strokes against paper.

He blinked his eyes open and saw Jensen sitting on the edge of the mattress, surrounded by a halo of light.

The sun rays shone brightly on him from behind, lighting up his hair in a golden hue.

He looked beautiful,  _angelic_   and Jared’s mouth dried up with want.

He had always been a possessive guy, but the overwhelming surge of desire he felt whenever he looked at Jensen, the urge to protect and claim and _own_ was almost too much to handle.

"Enjoy the view?" Jensen's mouth curled up into a smile.

“At least I’m only staring at you when you’re awake,” Jared shrugged, his own lips stretching into a lazy grin and yeah, maybe he wasn’t all that apologetic.

Jensen bit his bottom lip. “What can I say? You make a good model.”

There was something about Jensen, about the way he could be bashful one moment and confident the next, that made Jared want to get to know him better, made him want to understand the complexity of his character, the depth of his soul.

And when had he ever felt that way about _anyone_? Jared honestly couldn't remember.

“That so?” He let his gaze linger on the full curve of the other man’s lips for another second before looking down to where the pencil was scurrying across the notebook.  
  
It wasn't easy to make out details of the drawing in the shadow Jensen was casting on the paper, so Jared sat up and scooted closer, purposefully brushing their shoulders together as he tried to get a better look at the other man's work.  
  
"You woke up and moved around a bit so it didn’t turn out all that great."

“Sure, blame it on me,” Jared teased, bumping Jensen’s shoulder with his own.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Jensen squeaked, eyes widening as if he seriously thought Jared had taken offense in his earlier statement. “You were great. I mean you’re really good-looking but it’s not finished yet and—“

"Jensen," Jared cut into the man’s nervous ramble. “Relax.”

He was chuckling at the panicked expression on Jensen’s face, warmth blossoming in his chest at the throwaway comment about him being handsome.

It was a great compliment coming from somebody as beautiful as Jensen.

Jared glanced down at the drawing and froze.

"This is..." he swallowed, letting his fingers glide over the sketch before him.

The drawing showed Jared asleep, one arm sprawled out across the pillow, his face turned to the side with dark hair fanned out across his forehead. The blanket was pooling around his waist and Jared's mouth was slightly agape, the hard edges of his features smoothed out in blissful oblivion. The wolf tattoo on the right side of Jared's neck was drawn with meticulous detail and even the tail end of Jared's phoenix tattoo was peeking out from above the blanket.

Jared had never been particularly conscious of the way he looked or spent much time staring at his reflection because, in all honesty, there were more important things in life to worry about than looks.

But this right there, the serenity and beauty captured in Jensen's pencil sketch stole his breath.

"This is really good, man. I mean… _wow,_ " he laughed, rubbing his jaw self-consciously.

"Thanks," Jensen blushed again, dropping his head in that shy manner that made Jared want to do all kinds of things to him.

Things that would give him a _real_ reason to blush.  
  
"I don't usually do portraits," Jensen explained before closing his notebook and putting it back into his bag. Jared couldn't help it. His eyes inadvertently followed the valley of the man's spine down to the swell of his ass.

He wondered what it would be like to flick his tongue across the delicious cut of Jensen's hipbone, wondered if the man would hiss in pleasure and clench the blanket with his fingers or if he would try to stifle a moan.

"Guess I had to keep myself busy somehow while you slept,” Jensen snorted and Jared cringed internally when he glanced down at the clock.

Reality hit him like a freight train and the events from the night came flooding back to his mind.

There were things to be done. Decisions to be made.

And Jared was sitting in bed, flirting with a college student.

What the hell was he thinking?

"It's twelve-thirty?" he groaned. "Why didn't you fucking wake me?"

"Jared, you were shot. Your body needs time to recover," Jensen sighed while Jared got up from the mattress and started gathering up a few discarded pieces of clothing from the floor with his good arm. The pair of jeans he picked up was ripped in several places and had greasy smudges of oil and dirt all over. It smelled like petrol.

Jared hovered in the center of the room for a second, trying to figure out a way to put his jeans on without the use of his gimp hand only to come to the conclusion that it would only end with his ass on the floor. And taking a ridiculous nose dive to the ground wasn’t exactly something he planned on doing in front of Jensen.  
  
He lifted his hurt arm to test his mobility and regretted it the next second when blinding pain shot up his spine.

"Shit," he gritted his teeth and Jensen was there the next second, holding his arm steady.

"Stop moving it around," he scolded, pulling the sterile bandage away from the wound with nimble fingers.

Jared cursed under his breath when the fabric brushed the abrased skin around the graze. Deep red and purple bruising and marginal tears had formed around the split skin where the bullet had grazed him and even the slightest motion felt like somebody was digging their fingers into the wound. Hard.

Deep purple bruising and marginal tears had formed around the split skin where the bullet had grazed him and even the slightest motion felt like somebody was digging their fingers into the wound.

"Fucking hell," Jared bit his lower lip when Jensen gently prodded the elongated area of swollen skin with his fingers. "Hurts like a mother."  
  
"What did you expect?" Jensen rolled his eyes. "A standard bullet travels 900 meters per second with an energy level of over 4000 Joule. That's like getting hit by a motorcycle at 30 km/h."  
  
Jared couldn't help but chuckle at the comparison. "Are you using biker metaphors to make me understand your geek-speak?"

Jensen innocently lifted a shoulder. "Whatever helps."

"Can I ask you something?" Jared asked after a moment of silence, all the while watching Jensen's handiwork as he changed Jared's bandages with practiced ease.  
  
"Shoot."  
  
"What's the deal with the whole art project thing? I mean, it's pretty obvious that you're talented, don't get me wrong, but—"  
  
"But what?" Jensen inquired with a raised eyebrow, his tone turning defensive.  
  
Jared frowned. "What about becoming a doctor? Looks like you’re pretty damn good at what you’re doing. I mean it's almost like you're a fucking surgeon already, and you're gonna put all of that on hold for some drawing classes?"

Jensen didn't take his eyes off the task at hand, cleaning the bullet wound with tender precision, but it was pretty obvious that the words were bothering him.

A storm cloud was brewing on his face and Jared felt like he shouldn’t have prodded.

"Look, man, you don't have to answer if you don't feel comfortable talking about it. "  
  
Jensen swallowed, emotions warring on his features.

"When I was young, my family thought something was wrong with me," he said, carefully placing a sterile pad along the length of Jared's bullet graze and wrapping it with fresh gauze.

"I was an awkward kid, kind of shy around people. I didn't make friends with other kids my age but instead, my parents would sometimes find me happily chatting away with strangers... In hindsight I can see why it scared them- they were worried about me all the freaking time. It got even worse when they found out I was _'gifted’_."

Jensen made quotation marks with his hands, biting the words out as if they were something to be ashamed of.

"They dragged me off to the first psychiatrist shortly after I turned seven."

It wasn't hard to detect the pain in Jensen's voice at the memory and Jared's fingers curled in instant dislike for Jensen's family.

"I had to take a shit ton of tests which were designed to find symptoms for mental disorders like ADD or autism, only to find out that I had a photographic memory and an IQ of 167," Jensen snorted bitterly at the memory. "You should have seen the shock on their faces when they found out. It was almost like they were disappointed that I wasn't the freak they expected me to be."  
  
Jared didn't say anything, didn't want to push because he knew Jensen would answer in his own time.

"They enrolled me in a private boarding school soon after. Made me participate in all kinds of achievement tests, chess classes, mathletes, the freaking spelling bee, the whole nine yards. I barely had any time to play or make friends, didn’t even really like any of the things they signed me up for. The only freedom I had at that time, the only way I could make myself heard was—"  
  
"Your art," Jared finished for him, locking his jaw in understanding.  
  
He imagined how Jensen got dragged from one doctor to another and then sent off to a boarding school, just because he was different, just because his parents didn't know how to handle him.

How could his family have failed him like that?

Jared’s childhood hadn’t exactly been rainbows and kittens either, but at least, Jared had never been treated like a burden or some kind of circus freak.

"My whole life, I've been judged by my intelligence. But when I'm drawing," Jensen continued, looking off into the distance. "When I'm drawing, it means something. It's like I'm putting a piece of my soul onto paper."  
  
They wordlessly peered at each other for a moment.

"I don't know your parents and I don't know what their fucking deal is,” Jared cleared his throat. "But for what it’s worth, I think there’s much more to you than book smarts and a pretty face."  
  
Jensen blinked at him, about to say something when the door to his room suddenly opened.

"Sleeping beauty finally awake?" Chris asked in a gruff voice, poking his shaggy-haired head through the doorway.

Jared tossed a pillow at him and chuckled when it bounced off his friend's face.

Chris scoffed, flipping Jared off. "You're lucky you're a fucking invalid, now stop flirting with the doctor and get your lazy ass out of bed. Jeff wants to call in an assembly."

 

 

Soon after Chris had made his appearance, Jared got dressed despite Jensen's protesting.

"You really shouldn't be out of bed."  
  
"I'm fine," Jared forced out through clenched teeth as he pulled the wife beater over his tattooed abs.

Jensen hovered close by, hesitant to offer up his help when Jared seemed determined to get dressed on his own, but still _there_ in case he was needed.  
  
"You should go back home, catch some sleep. I can drive you."  
  
"Drive me? Jared, you shouldn't even be up and about, much less driving a car around. Don't you understand the concept of bed rest?"

Chris was munching away on something that looked like scrambled eggs while intently watching their conversation unfold. "What's that, boys? Trouble in paradise? But you've only just fallen in love two days ago!"

"Shut up, Chris!" both boys snapped at the same time, much to the long-haired man's amusement.

He raised his palms in surrender, playing the innocent. "No need to get all defensive, guys. It's cute, really. The way you two finish each other's sentences and all."

"He's right," Jeff said as he entered the kitchen. "Stop bickering like an old married couple. You're giving me a headache."

Jensen opened his mouth in half-hearted protest and then closed it again, knowing it was useless.

"How's the arm? You sleep alright?" Jeff's tone softened when he addressed Jared.

Despite the way Jeff clearly cared for the younger man and fretted over him, Jensen couldn’t help but feel like something was a little off between them.

They didn’t really have that typical father-and-son relationship you would see in books and movies. They didn’t even look alike.

Apart from their swagger and rugged looks, Jensen hadn’t noticed any striking similarities between the two men.

And yet Jeff was undeniably the only parental figure in Jared’s life- somebody to trust and confide in, somebody to understand and accept Jared the way he was.  
  
"Better than you, apparently," Jared snorted with a pointed look at the older man. "You look like shit. Did you catch any rest at all or did you stay up all night, moping?"  
  
"I stayed up all night _worrying_ about your ungrateful ass," Jeff snapped loosening the bandage around Jared's arm to take a look at the flesh wound beneath.

Jensen wanted to tell Jeff not to touch the bandage he had carefully rewrapped the wound with minutes before, but Jeff peeled the gauze aside before he got the chance to protest.

“Fucking hell,” the older man ground out, blanching a little at the violent bruising that had formed around the split skin.

It was hard to make out beneath the heavily tattooed skin, but Jared’s whole arm was tinged violet and blue, tiny tears blossoming across the abrased and swollen skin like roots of a tree.

“It looks like his goddamn arm is gonna fall off or something. You sure he doesn’t need a hospital?”

Jensen’s eyes widened with barely repressed anger. He couldn’t believe the guy’s audacity. “ _You_ were the one who said not to involve hospitals!”

“That was before I knew you were gonna make him worse! What the hell kind of doctor do you think you are? Does the fact that his limb has swollen to twice its size not bother you at all? When were you gonna tell me about this?” Jeff accused with a furious expression on his face and wow… just _wow_.

Jensen needed a second to compose himself because it wouldn’t do him any good to break the guy’s nose.

Even if he really, _really_ wanted to.

“Okay, first of all, I’m not a doctor yet and I told you that,” Jensen spat, poking his index finger into Jeff’s chest. “Technically, I’m not even allowed to give somebody a flu shot _,_ much less treat a freaking gunshot wound. So if you hadn’t just come fresh from a fucking firefight- which undoubtedly would have landed you all in a prison cell, I would have dragged Jared off to a hospital my fucking self.”

Jensen wasn’t sure why they were all staring at him like this, but he took satisfaction in their shocked expressions, his rant picking up more momentum by the second.

“But since that wasn’t in the cards, I had to make do play field surgeon with a bottle of clean fuel and some low budget pain killers. So you wanna bitch about his arm being a little bruised? How about next time you patch him up yourself and we’ll see how it goes!”

By the time he was finished, Jensen’s breath was coming fast and hard, his fingers curled into fists by his side.

Jeff’s eyes were narrowed as he continued to stare at Jensen, his callous hands still wrapped around Jared’s upper arm in examination.

“You done?” the man asked after an awkward break and Jensen locked his jaw, swallowing down a new surge of aggravation.

Jensen crossed his arms in front of his chest, holding Jeff’s glare. “I want to know what happened last night.”

“Now listen up, kid,” Jeffrey’s eyes sparked to life with hostility, but Jared held him back with the tiniest shake of his head.

“Cool it, Jeff. Maybe we should just tell him."

Chris got up from his seat at the kitchen counter. “Are you out of your damn mind? There’s no fucking way we’re gonna drag him any deeper into this than necessary, especially after what happened last night. You want his fucking blood on your hands or something?”

Jensen was about to point out that he could speak for himself, thank you very much, but it seemed like he wasn’t going to be an active part of this conversation if the other three men had any say in the matter.

“Chris is right. How the hell do you think this is all gonna play out? What are we gonna do with him once he’s gotten his answers, huh? Wait until he calls the cops on us? Make him part of the gang as our geeky sidekick?”

Jensen flinched at the words, feeling their sting.

He felt Jared’s gaze on him and quickly looked away, trying to hide the irrational hurt that roared to life in his chest.

Because all of this suddenly felt like a huge, terrible mistake.

What had he been thinking, going to that biker show in the first place when he didn’t know the first fucking thing about motorcycles?

Why the hell did he get on some stranger’s bike and let himself be dragged off into a different world, a world full of crime and danger and deception when the alternative was so much brighter, so much more promising?

Maybe it wasn’t Jared who was stupid- who was making a mistake here, but himself.

Maybe his last chance of leaving this whole ordeal unscathed rested within Jeffrey’s rejection.

_Maybe it was better this way._

But deep down inside Jensen knew that none of his doubts mattered- none of them would make him regret his decision to have taken a ride on Jared’s bike that night when they first met.

Because there was an almost magnetic pull between him and that tattooed biker and for once in his life, Jensen was convinced that it was something to fight for, that this undeniable, irrational connection between them was worth exploring, worth _pursuing_.

They wanted to know what he was good for? They wanted to know how he fit into their perfectly screwed-up little biker family?

Fine, he could give them a fucking demonstration.

“Alright, listen up,” Jensen strode forward and shoved Jeff to the side.

“With a graze like this,“ Jensen ghosted his fingers along the side of the wound, careful as not to apply too much pressure. “And the necessary expertise, one look is all it takes to tell what kind of weapon was used and from what distance or angle Jared had been shot.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you can do that?” Jeff scoffed, looking ten kinds of skeptical. “You can’t even look at a gun without starting to shake, kid.”

Jensen swallowed, determined not to let his shock show.

So they had noticed… it didn’t matter. Just because he didn’t like guns, didn’t mean he couldn’t talk about them.

“As a rule of thumb, penetration trauma is greater the longer the weapon’s barrel is. Now Jared’s graze is only about four inches long, which makes me think we’re talking a handheld gun, probably semi-automatic. A standard semi sends bullets off at about 3-4 hundred miles per second. That’s about the speed a cartridge would need to leave a wound about that size. Now that alone doesn’t really tell us much… but if you look at the bullet’s lane right here—“

Jensen pointed at the digit-wide groove that split Jared’s skin in two and Chris cringed a little at the sight.

“Judging from the width of the channel I would say we’re facing a .45 caliber, bullets commonly used for a Glock or Taurus.”

Jeff and Chris blinked at him, looking dumbfounded and unsure what to make of all the facts Jensen had dumped on their heads.

But it was Jared’s gaze that made Jensen’s heart stutter… the man's eyes were wild, his look slightly feral as he soaked the words up, hanging on Jensen’s lips like he had never heard anything more fascinating in his life.

“How do you know all that?”

“I told you,” Jensen sighed, tapping the side of his forehead. “Photographic memory.”

Chris looked like someone had just smacked him in the face, the frown on his forehead was so deep, Jensen was worried it wouldn't leave. “You mean to tell us you know all of that shit by heart? What you just- watch CSI Miami once and you remember?”

 _‘Yeah right,’_ Jensen thought to himself. _'Like that ginger-haired dickwad with a penchant for misplaced one-liners knew left from right in real life.'_

“Pretty much,” was what he said out loud.

Jensen seriously doubted that these crime shows held a lot of medical or forensic accuracy, but it wasn’t exactly like he had the time to watch them.

Reality had a lot more to do with reading books and watching documentaries than with watching crappy daytime TV, but the meaning behind it was the same.

Most of the time, Jensen only needed to hear something once or twice to memorize it.

The news seemed to throw them all a little, even Jeff’s aggravation seemed to vanish from his eyes and smooth out into deep thought.

Jensen guessed the older man had started to realize that there were certain benefits to having someone like Jensen on his team.

“I don’t want to be part of your gang. I just want to know what happened yesterday. You owe me that much.”

Jeff’s jaw muscle worked and Jensen knew he had won. “Alright, whatever. You can join our meeting tonight if you want. As long as you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

Jensen didn’t know what to feel at first- dread or relief at being dragged even deeper into their lives, but it had been his decision.

And there was no going back now.

“Just so you know, if Jensen ends up being our trusty side-kick, I’ll be the one to take his Rainman-ass to Vegas,” Chris slung an arm around Jensen's neck and ruffled his hair before the younger man could do or say anything to prevent it.

Jared snorted. “No way, man. I called dips on him. He’s mine _._ ”

 

 

"I can't believe this,“ Tom muttered, shoving his riveting copy of _Evidence, Proof and Justice_ away from himself with an aggravated huff and Mike looked up from his paperwork with a frown.

“What now?” he sighed, even though he was well aware of the reason for his boyfriend’s annoyance.

Tom cut him a sideways look, accusing like Mike was the sole reason for every bad thing that had ever happened in his life. “Jensen, of course!”

Mike rolled his eyes.  _H_ _ere we go again..._

“Tom, we’ve been through this. Jensen’s old enough to make his own decisions. Just let it go, alright?”

“This isn’t about him making decisions of his own,” Tom got up from his seat and nearly knocked the wooden art deco chair over in the process. His cheeks were slightly flushed with anger, the way they always got when he worked himself up over something.

Mike set his pen aside and leaned back in his chair, silently steeling himself for the inevitable.

Tom had been riled up ever since the first night when Jensen disappeared and the fact that he had spent his third night in a row with the mysterious biker guy was like adding gasoline to a fire.

Sure, there had been the platonic reconciliation between the two friends, but the fury and maybe even a little bit of hurt was still residing in his boyfriend and it wasn’t going anywhere soon.

“What is it about, then?” Mike asked his boyfriend with a carefully blank expression on his face.

Tom’s chest was rising and falling quickly beneath his cornflower blue polo shirt, the cords of his neck standing out beneath his ivory skin.

And even in the midst of what was clearly an impending fight, Mike couldn’t help noticing how stunningly handsome Tom was, how he was practically a Gucci model fresh from the catwalk even when he was about to take someone’s head off.

It never failed to amaze him.

“In four years of living together, I can count the times Jensen slept outside his dorm room on one hand and now all of a sudden he meets this, this Jared guy and he’s gone every night!”

Mike did his best to keep a straight face.

It all seemed pretty simple to him.

“So he’s falling for the guy, big fucking deal. Why does it bother you so much?“

Tom did that thing where he looked like a strangled chicken, eyes bulging and mouth slightly agape.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because Jared is part of a biker gang which could be involved in all kinds of criminal activities, for all we know. And besides, you haven’t seen the guy, okay? He looked like he was about to jump Jensen’s bones at that fair.“

“How’s that a bad thing?” Mike sighed, looking mildly amused. He was going to hell for saying this but, “Maybe Jensen just wants to get laid, okay?”

“I can’t fucking believe you just said that,” Tom gasped, looking mortified.

“Oh, c’mon Tommy. It’s about time the guy lived a little. All he ever does is hide away in classrooms and bury his nose in books.”

Tom looked away, unwilling to acknowledge the words as the truth, even when he knew Mike was right. He probably considered it as some kind of betrayal to talk that way about his best friend.

“I know _Jensen_ and he's not aware of what he's getting himself into. This whole thing, and whatever comes of it? He’s going to end up with a broken heart and I can’t watch it happen.”

Mike sighed, rubbing his temple to hold a headache at bay. “Look, maybe you’re right, maybe Jensen doesn’t know enough about the guy to hang with him and maybe this Jared is a total player, a criminal, whatever, take your pick. But the world is full of maybes and we can’t just lock ourselves away at home because we’re afraid of what might happen.”

“Well, maybe we should,“ Tom petulantly responded, unwilling to let the argument go.

He was staring off into the distance, whole body tense with frustration.

He never met Mike’s eyes when they were fighting. Not since he read an article about the transmission of negative energy through eye contact in some lifestyle magazine.

Mike had a sinking suspicion that it wasn’t so much about negative energy as it was about trying to mask his hurt pride.

Getting up from his chair with a sigh, Mike walked around the long dining table in his apartment and gently lifted Tom’s chin with his index and middle finger. “If that was true, we wouldn’t be together.”

Mike leaned in to press a slightly off-centered kiss against the corner of Tom’s lips and the taller man practically melted against him.

“I worry about him,” he whispered against the side of Mike’s face. Like it was some sort of secret when it was public knowledge.

“I know,” Mike responded with a twitch of his lips. “But this is Jensen we’re talking about. He’s a genius. Even if something was off with that Jared guy, don’t you think he’d notice it?”

Tom shook his head, seemingly unsatisfied with Mike’s reasoning. “And what about Matt?”

Mike picked his way around that particular minefield carefully.

No need to elicit another argument.

“Babe, maybe you should give it a rest with the matchmaking?”

Tom’s features instantly turned affronted. Apparently, he hadn’t been careful enough.

“Matchmaking? You were the one who introduced Matt to Jensen during our last home party, remember?”

“Yeah, and you were the one who tried to make them a thing ever since.”

Tom’s brows rose to his hairline, blue eyes flashing with defiance. “I didn’t try to make them into _anything_. They decided to go on a date together after the party. And now they’ve been going out for a while. Matt seems like a really nice guy and—“

“And Jensen obviously isn’t into him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh please,” Mike bit out, deciding that it was already too late to turn this conversation around. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the way he behaves around Matt. He’s barely able to stand the guy’s touch, much less have a god honest conversation with him.”

It was surprising that Tom hadn’t noticed these things, given how close he and Jensen were.

But his boyfriend had a habit of only seeing what he wanted to see.

“That’s ridiculous. I would know it if Jensen didn’t like Matt—“

“I’m not saying he doesn’t like the guy, Tom. He’s just not in love with him. These are two different things.”

“So what? You think I’m trying to force them into a relationship or something?” Mike shot back with an angry huff. “They’re both adults and they make their own decisions, isn’t that what you said just a second ago? If there was no real chemistry between them, don’t you think they would have stopped dating already?”

Mike let out a slow breath, feeling at a loss. They were turning in circles here and it was tiring.

“I don’t know. But I’ve watched them and I’m telling you that Matt isn’t the right guy for Jensen.”

“Oh, but Jared and Jensen are a match made in heaven!”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Whatever,” Tom shook his head and they both fell silent. Then resolution settled on the taller man’s features and he grabbed his black designer coat from the backrest of his chair.

Mike blinked at him slowly. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” was all Tom said as he crossed the living space to the entrance of Mike’s small downtown apartment.

The door slammed shut with resonating finality and Mike stared at it for a long moment before sinking back down in his chair and resuming his paperwork, even when he probably wasn’t going to get any actual work done after—well after whatever the hell had just happened. It had been their second fight in a goddamn week and now there wouldn’t even be makeup sex.

Mike grimaced, clutching his pen hard enough to hurt.

He really fucking hoped this Jared guy was worth it.

 

 

 

The hospital smelled like synthetic, sanitized death.

Despite years of exposure, Jensen had never really gotten used to it.

The fluorescent neon light cast a sickly bright shine onto the white tile floor and Jensen idly wondered how the doctors and nurses hadn’t turned blind after years of working at Saint Andrews.

“Think we’ll be let in?” Chris asked from somewhere behind Jensen as he led the small group through the sterile corridors of the hospital.

Jared had suggested for them to take the slight detour on their way to the bike shop to check on Chad and they had all agreed.

“Depends on his condition,” Jensen gave back softly. “My best guess would be no because he’s probably still in the ICU. In any case, I can check his vitals for you. See if he’s doing any better since he was brought in.”

“By flirting with that young thing?” Chris teased, jabbing an elbow into Jensen’s side and laughing that smoky laugh of his, the one he let out whenever he felt he had said something particularly clever or funny. “She’s kinda cute, you know? Nice pair of boobs- not that you would notice or anything—“

“Shut your mouth, Chris,” Jared intervened, sounding pissed, but to be honest, Jensen was too glad for the interruption to wonder about why or how Jared’s voice sounded angry.

He wasn’t ready to respond to wherever Chris was headed with his conversation.

Besides, it wasn’t exactly like Alona would fall for a ‘no-strings-attached’ cowboy type like Chris.

Jensen was glad when they finally reached the information desk in the waiting room.

A young brunette with a ponytail and bright lip gloss looked up at them from behind the rim of her glasses. Her scrutinizing gaze landed on Jensen first and then flickered over to Jared, Chris and Jeffrey, turning colder when she noticed their leather gear and faded jeans.

“Can I help you somehow, gentlemen?”

He had never seen her before. They must have hired her recently.

“Hi, uh, we’re here to see our family member… Chad Michael Murray? He was brought in two days ago with a fibular fracture and some severe trauma to his head. Motorcycle accident.”

She hammered a few words into her keyboard, fake nails catching on the keys loudly while she chewed languidly on her gum. “His stats improved a lot last night. He got moved to another ward.”

Technically, she wasn’t allowed to give out client information like that, but Jensen wasn’t about to call her out on her mistake.

“Are you sure?” Jared shoved past Jensen to stand in front of the little window that allowed conversation between the hospital employees and the visitors. He looked tense with agitation, tall body rigid beneath the worn leather.

“That’s good news, right?” Chris urged from the side as if there was any doubt about it.

“Of course, that’s good fucking news, you idiot,” Jeff gruffly swore at Chris, while running a hand through his salt-and-pepper mane in relief.

“Listen,” Jensen stepped closer to the glass, gently shoving Jared out of the way to get a better look at the girl's name tag. “—Martha. Could you point us in the direction of the ward he was moved to? We’ve been waiting to see him for two days.”

She seemed to contemplate it for a moment, jaw moving up and down in tantalizing movements as she continued to chew her gum. After an awkward moment of silence, she pointed down the hallway with one of her brightly colored gel nails. “Down the corridor, then take a left to the elevators. It’s up on the seventh floor. You’ll have to sign up with the POD before entering and then sign out again once you leave.”

“That’s great, thanks.”

Maybe it was a blessing that Alona hadn’t been on duty today.

 

 

Just before they were about to turn into Chad’s ward, Jensen pulled Jared aside by the sleeve of his leather jacket.

“Hey, listen,” he looked up at Jared who had a frown on his face.

“What?” Jared asked impatiently, throwing a nervous glance over his shoulder to where Jeff and Chris were waiting for him to get a move on.

“They’ll only let one of you guy’s in at a time, maybe two.”

“So?”

“So I’m not coming. You guys go ahead without me. Find the physician on duty and sign yourself in under an alias,” Jensen nodded towards a burly looking woman in white scrubs down the hallway.

Jared followed his gaze, the frown on his forehead deepening as if he couldn’t trust Jensen to be by himself.

“What are you gonna do?” he narrowed his eyes and the suspiciousness in his tone pissed Jensen off. He hadn’t done anything to earn this type of distrust.

“Call the cops,” he deadpanned.

Jared didn't look amused.

“I’m going to the pediatric ward, alright? Now go before Jeff rips you a new one. I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

Jensen turned around without waiting for a response, jogging down the corridor they had come from until he was sure he was out of the other man’s sight.

He took a left, then a right until he reached a green metal door with a small window. It was a storage room for medical supplies, the one that was always locked, even when somebody was inside.

They’ve had a few break-ins before, drug addicts mostly.

Jensen’s heart was racing, his palms sweaty.

He had been raised to do good by others.

His family had had many flaws but the one thing Jensen had always appreciated about his conservative upbringing was the way his parents had taught him to treat his fellow men respectfully, to be a gentlemen, to be kind and generous.

Stealing things, especially stealing from somebody in need, had always been an unimaginable crime, unforgivable not only in the eyes of god, but also in the eyes of their family and now he was standing here, trying to figure out a quick and easy way of getting his hands on some intravenous fluids and pain narcotics.

If only his Mom could see him now.

Stealing medicine from a clinic that was run by the _freaking church_ , of all places and then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, doing it for someone like Jared.

Jensen stiffened when the sound of approaching footsteps echoed through the hallway.

He swallowed, taking a quick look around and ducking into one of the closet rooms nearby, the ones that contained brooms and cleaning supplies, along with a few discarded white robes and clean scrubs.

The faint smell of sweat and sex hung in the air, trapped like a butterfly in a glass and Jensen held his breath until the muffled footsteps grew distanced as they bypassed him.

He waited for another second or two before grabbing one of the white lab coats from a hook and slinging a nearby stethoscope around his shoulders.

He was going to hell for this. But then again, he was probably headed there anyways (according to his family) so why not take things all the way, right?

The white coat sat a little loose around his lithe frame, but there were keys in his pocket and Jensen silently closed his eyes in thanks.

This whole plan was so freaking clichéd and dumb, it probably shouldn’t be rewarded with so much luck, but Jensen wasn’t complaining.

Sending one last prayer to no one in particular, Jensen pushed out of the dark closet and into the brightly lit hallway only to nearly stumble into one of the nurses.

“Oh my god, pardon me,” she gasped, hectically fumbling with the clipboard in her hands. “I didn’t know you were in there, I’m so sorry doctor.”

Jensen tried to keep his gaze averted as much as possible, not wanting her to see his face.

“No worries, it was my fault,” and shoved past her, purposefully bypassing the supply room and then rounding the corner.

He waited until she was gone before turning back to the door and lifting the key that wasn’t his own to the lock with trembling fingers.

There were four keys on the ring.

The second one fit.

 

 

Jared eyed the paper for a second, his own hands shaking with nervous excitement for being able to see his friend after days of having not been able to be near him.

He sent a questioning look towards Chris, pen poised over the paper as he waited for the go-ahead from his friend.

“Dude, just fucking sign it. I waited this fucking long- I’ll survive another 15 minutes without seeing Chad’s ugly mug.”

That was all Jared needed to hear.

He and Chad had been best friends for pretty much their whole lives, so it only made sense for him to go in first. Especially considering Chad didn’t have family and that they had both grown up, more or less on their own.

“Are you family?” one of Chad’s nurses asked as she watched them from the side.

She had curly red hair and cherub cheeks. Chris had not-so-subtly checked her out when she had come around the corner to ask them what they needed.

A few days ago Jared would have probably sweet-talked her and judging from the way she gave him stolen sideways looks of badly disguised interest, dragged her off to one of these stuffy closets, but with everything that had happened, he was a little too pre-occupied with thoughts of The Reapers, Chad and  _Jensen_ , to even spare her a second glance.

“We’re cousins,” Jared answered distractedly, before handing her the clipboard back “Second cousins.”

“Are you all from Texas?” she fluttered her eyelashes up at him and Chris rolled his eyes at the ease with which Jared seemed to attract men and women alike, almost like drawing moths to a flame.

And if he had had a little bit of patience left within him, he would have given her a languid smile and drawled out something that was pure Texan charm, mixed with a little bit of that wayward too-cool-for-school attitude.

But he wasn’t in the mood. And the chick was standing between him and his best friend, who had been hit by three cars on the fucking interstate.

“Can you show me the way to his room?” he growled out low under his breath. “Or do I have to find it myself?”

Because so help him god, he was gonna tear that infirmary apart in his quest to find Chad.

The smile vanished from the girl’s face. 

“Follow me,” she griped, practically ripping the clipboard from his hands, before she stomped off, Jared hot on her heels.

“I won’t be able to let you in with him for very long,” she said quite unapologetically and Jared let out a controlled breath of frustration as he followed her down the hallway. “He’s still in a rough shape and he’s already had his wife with him for practically all day.”

Jared’s heart slammed to an abrupt halt in his chest and his temper flared. Without thinking, he reached out to grab the girl’s arm with his good hand and whirled her around. “The fuck did you just say?”

Her eyes widened, breath hitching in her throat as she flinched in his grasp. Jared instantly let go of her, rolling his neck as he threw a nervous glance around.

_Fuck._

He really needed to learn how to keep his freaking cool in public.

“Chad isn’t married.”

The ginger-haired nurse blinked up at him as if she was still in shock over how he had gripped her. “But his wife was here. I let her in myself—“

Realization slammed home like a fucking freight train and Jared swore under his breath before wrenching the clipboard with the list of Chad’s visitors out of her grasp.

“Sir!” she put her arms on her hips, lips pursed in anger. “You can’t just—“

**_McCoy._ **

Sandy’s name was written in neat handwriting, the signature distinctive in the way her letters were curled at the ends.

“ _Son of a bitch_ ,” Jared growled out low under his breath and scrunched the paper up into a ball before taking off towards the closest patient room.

 

 

The pediatric ward was always busy, no matter what day or time.

It was mostly parents and other family members who crowded the tight space in between brightly colored wallpaper and hospital beds but Jensen had never minded the low buzz of chatter and beeping machines in this particular unit as much as in others.

He hadn’t actually planned on coming here in the beginning, but then he remembered that little Suzie had a surgery coming up in a week and he found himself striding down the familiar hallways of the PICU, the floor specializing in the care of critically ill children and teenagers.

He used to come here every Wednesday to read stories and goof off with the kids when his schedule allowed it, but with exams coming up and Jensen getting back on the field his spare time was reduced to pretty much sleep, showers, and food. In that order.

He felt oddly guilty for coming back only because of some stranger who Jensen had never even seen before, and another near-stranger who just so happened to have gotten himself shot the night before.

But he decided to shove his gnawing guilt away for the moment as he stepped through the glass door of Suzie’s room.

It startled him a little, the sight of her frail form in that hospital bed. She looked ridiculously small amidst the myriad of tubes and wires that were attached to her body.

Suzie’s mom was sitting on a chair next to her with dark circles underneath her eyes. Her cheeks were hollowed out and her eyes were glassy with tears.

Jensen could see old beauty in her features, but it was slowly wasting away under the constant worry and fear for her child.

The father was grasping his daughter’s arm tight enough to leave bruises.

Suzie was pale, deathly so.

Jensen hovered in the doorway, unsure if he should disturb the family when it was so obvious that they were barely holding it together.

His heart was in his throat, beating wildly.

He hesitated for a second too long, when the mom’s wandering eyes suddenly latched onto him and brightened up ever so slightly in recognition.

“Jensen,” she greeted with a forced smile, looking like she was about to burst out into tears at the sight of him and Jensen felt like about one foot tall, guilt and grief gnawing away at his conscience.

This was why they told you not to get attached.

This was why they told you not to work in the pediatric unit.

“Hey,” Jensen croaked out and kicked himself for the way his voice broke. He forced his wooden limbs to move forward and smiled down at Suzie when she tried to straighten up in bed.

“Jensen! You came,” the eight-year-old squealed with a surprising level of energy, given her current state.

“Of course, I came,” he circled the bed and shot the parents a questioning look before they gave him a reassuring nod and he sat down on the side of her bed. “Or did you think I’d forget about my fiancé’s big day coming up?”

It was an old joke between them.

One day he would marry her and whisk her off to Disneyworld where they’d have a fairytale wedding, including white ponies and puppies. Lots of puppies, as she would insist.

Suzie loved to let her imaginations run wild and Jensen liked to indulge her because it was better for her to focus on the future than on the present.

Kids were more perceptive than a lot of people gave them credit for and there was no way the girl didn’t pick up on the sad, pitiful looks on everyone constantly gave her, almost like they had given up hope like they were already silently saying their goodbyes.

It was important for her to get positive reinforcement.

So everybody needed to suck it up and put up a brave front for this little girl who had a bone marrow transplant coming up in only a few days.

“Daddy said you might be too busy with school’n stuff,” she sniffed, rubbing at the dried tear tracks on her pale cheeks.

Jensen sent her father a look.

The man had never liked the idea of a twenty-something-year-old guy hanging with his eight-year-old daughter and in a way, with how many fucked-up people were out there, Jensen could understand his concern.

“Well your dad’s right,” Jensen smiled at her. “I am really busy with school at the moment, but that doesn’t mean I’ll forget all about you, alright?”

Suzie nodded and some of the color returned to her face.

“Good. How about you tell me what you’ve been up to while I was gone?”

Suzie’s mom looked relieved when her daughter started chattering away happily about her new doll and crayons and about how she wants a pink bridal dress with yellow flowers on top.

She got up from her chair with a tired smile and shot her husband a meaningful look. “C’mon Hank, we’ll give these two lovebirds a minute to themselves.”

 

 

Sandy hadn’t been in the room with Chad by the time Jared stormed through the doorway.

It didn’t matter.

Because the moment Jared stepped into that room, every thought of the brunette’s evil schemes got sucked out of his brain and every last bit of anger drained from his body.

The first thing he saw was the thick plastic tube protruding from Chad’s mouth with a ventilator attached. His friend’s chest rose and fell in an unnatural, artificial rhythm and the heart monitor’s steady beeping was oddly hypnotizing.

Bandages were covering him from head to toe and the few places that weren’t covered in thick layers of white gauze were littered with red and purple bruises. His left eye was swollen shut and some of his stupid blond hair was sticking out from the bandages in spiky strands.

Jared was frozen in space for a second. Then he took a few mechanic steps forward and clutched at the frame of Chad’s hospital bed as if it was the only thing keeping him upright.

His lips were shaking as he pressed them together, vision blurring with tears of unspoken grief.

“Fuck,” he pressed out, grabbing a handful of his shaggy bangs and pulling them back from his face in a nervous gesture. “Don’t you fucking dare, you hear me?”

Chad was irresponsive. Of course, he was.

He didn’t do anything but lie there, looking like he had been brought back from the dead.

And it wasn’t like he had expected an answer or anything but seeing his usually outspoken friend, the one who never knew when to shut up- so silent was almost too much to bear.

It somehow made everything that had happened so much more real.

And Jared wasn’t ready for it.

He couldn’t breathe.

He kicked at the bed, letting out a frustrated growl before nurse Ratchet appeared in the doorway, red hair a mess around her shoulders. “Hey! What are you doing?! I’m going to call security—“

“Don’t fucking bother,” Jared bit out, before storming past her and out of the room.

He ignored Chris and Jeff’s calls as he rushed down the corridor to the elevators.

He didn’t realize he was headed for the pediatric unit until he found himself standing in front of a glass door that had **_I_ _ntensive Child Care_** spelled on it in bold letters.

Finding Jensen wasn’t hard, but Jared deflated a little when his blurred eyes landed on the other man’s form as he sat on a little girl’s hospital bed and exchanged friendly jibes and stories.

The overwhelming, brain-numbing pain that had driven him out of Chad’s room eased a little at the sight of Jensen’s smile, at the sound of the sick little girl’s laughter.

And for the second time in only a short amount of time, Jared froze, watching the exchange between the two people in the room from behind a thick glass wall that was intended to give nurses and doctors an overview over their patients.

He watched them from a safe distance, suddenly insecure, afraid to break the innocence of their chatter with his troubles.

“Which one is yours?” a woman had appeared beside him out of seemingly nowhere, a hand-woven brown quilt draped around her shoulders. She had kind eyes, filled with sadness and it wasn’t hard to figure out that she must have been the mother of one of these children.

Jared’s face softened slightly at the realization.

He couldn’t imagine being in her shoes, looking through that glass at his own child and seeing it in pain… having to watch it slowly waste away with each passing day.

The mere thought was depressing.

He swallowed, feeling uncomfortable. “Uh, no… it’s not. I’m not… None of them are mine.”

“Oh,” the compassionate smile slowly vanished from her lips as she clutched the cup of coffee in her hands a little tighter. “Then you are here to...?”

It took him a moment to realize that she wanted for him to finish the question.

“I uh,” Jared stammered, aware that he must be coming off as a creepy perve. “I guess you could say one of them belongs to me after all,” he gestured over at Jensen with an awkward little shrug.

“Jensen?” her eyes widened in understanding and the tension instantly left her shoulders. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”

Jared didn’t get why she was sorry- because she thought they were a couple and it was some kind of secret nobody was ever supposed to know, or because she had prodded?

Maybe she was sorry because they were gay.

She kinda looked like the kind of woman who was capable of bullshit reasoning like that.

He shrugged it off, because none of these theories were right, anyways.

“That your girl he’s talking to?” Jared didn’t know why he even bothered, why he spent his time being here, talking to this fucking random stranger- while Jeff and Chris were left down there to deal with the fallout of his earlier behavior.

The woman’s face darkened instantly and Jared swallowed. “Her name’s Suzie."

He didn’t know how to react.

He had never been good with big words or emotions. So instead of trying to tell her how sorry he was, and how fucked up the world was to dish out such a bad fucking hand to a little, innocent girl, Jared said nothing at all. It wasn't his place. Not his business.

He watched Suzie blush furiously in response to something Jensen had said. Her eyes were bright with admiration as she stared up at him from where she was propped against her pillow.

“Seems like she’s crushing pretty hard on the good doctor.”

The mother gave Jared a sideways glance.

“Seems like she’s not the only one.” 

She turned around with a knowing smile on her lips.

Jared stared at her, thinking about what she’d said until Jensen had said his goodbyes and pulled the ward room’s door closed after himself, trading places with Suzie's mother.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be with Chad?” Jensen frowned, moving closer.

Jared rubbed a thumb across his bottom lip. “Cute little girl. You were good with her. A natural with kids, huh?”

Jensen wasn’t fooled. His frown deepened as he dragged Jared away from the window and into a dim corner of the hallway.

"Something happened, didn't it?"

"Figures you'd be the type to befriend eight-year-old cancer patients," Jared snorted softly, ignoring Jensen's concern. He reached out to brush his fingers lightly against Jensen's cheek. "There anything about you that's not fucking perfect?"

The other man's bright green eyes widened at the gentle gesture, the sudden proximity between them. “Jay. What are you—“

Jensen never got to finish when Jared sealed their mouths together in a passionate kiss.

Jensen’s startled gasp was muffled, the soft sound of confusion swallowed by Jared’s lips as he claimed the other man’s mouth and pushed his body up against the hospital wall.

He moved a hand to Jensen’s neck, tangling his fingers in the silken strands of hair and tugging in a silent prompt for the other man to catch on with the program.

It took a second.

A terrifyingly long second in which Jared’s heart ceased to beat in his chest.

But then Jensen reached up to bury his fingers in Jared's long curls, mouth opening willingly under the persistent pressure of Jared's mouth.

His smaller frame body practically melted against Jared's, breath coming hot and fast as they gave in to the tension that had been building up between them for days.

It was wrong on so many levels.

Wrong time. Wrong place.

Wrong fucking _guy,_  because Jensen was too good for him, was too pure and too beautiful and way too fucking smart.

But the temptation was big and Jared was confused and scared out of his goddamn’ mind and probably dead pretty fucking soon if the Reapers had any goddamn say in the matter and he wanted,  _needed_ Jensen like he needed air to breathe.

When Jensen broke away, breath going heavy and cheeks flushed with want, his pupils were blown and there were too many emotions on his face, all above worry and a whole lot of confusion.

The transition from heated, electrifying passion to rational clarity was painful.

Like somebody ripped the ground away from beneath their feet and sent them flying.

Jensen put his hands against Jared’s chest as if to put a physical barrier up between them.

His lips were kiss-swollen and slick with saliva, _marked up_ and the sight made Jared dizzy with lust.

“Jared, I don’t—“ Jensen's face scrunched up with regret as he shook his head, searching for words.

_I don’t think this is a good idea._

_I don’t want to be one more notch in your belt._

_I don’t know what the hell you were thinking but isn’t gonna work out._

Jared smiled sadly, averting his gaze. “Listen, we need to bail. You don’t have to come along. I don’t… I think it’s better if you don’t.”

"Bail?" Jensen swallowed, eyes wide. “Jared, I don't understand. What happened?”

“Nothing too bad, it’s just- I think the nurse might have called security.”

“Security?” Jensen repeated, probably wondering how things had escalated in the thirty minutes he had left them alone.

“Look, I thought about this and you’re- fuck _Jensen_ , you’re so much better than this and I can’t…”

_I can’t drag you down to the mud with me._

“It’s probably best if we don’t see each other again.”

“What?” Jensen gaped at him, shock written all over his face.

He was pale and shaky, his fingers curling and uncurling against the fabric of Jared's T-shirt. And for the first time since they had met, Jensen's tough demeanor showed some cracks, fear and insecurity seeping through.

Jared was practically the only thing holding him up now, the kiss having left him breathless and weak in the knees.

And it was humbling to know that Jared had this effect on him, that he could strip Jensen of all his defenses and reveal a vulnerability beneath that rarely anyone ever got to see.

“Tell Alona some story- say we didn’t have insurance. That we coerced you into helping us, that he isn’t your cousin but some stranger you’ve never seen before.”

Jensen was speechless, at a total loss for words and given his usual eloquence, that was a surefire way to tell that something was off.

And then his face grew serious, every last trace of shock and confusion being replaced by angry disbelief.

He straightened, shoving Jared lightly away from himself and squaring his shoulders.

“Okay, you know what? Fuck you, Jared. Fuck you and your holier-than-though-bullshit speech.”

 _Okay._ Not the reaction he had expected.

Jensen looked around as if he had only just now realized that there might be kids around to hear his swearing. 

Then he lowered his voice, even when his eyes were still sparking fire.

“Whatever makes you think you can just steam waltz in here and- and freaking _kiss_ me like the world's about to end just to tell me to forget about it the next second?”

“Jen…”

“No don’t you fucking ‘Jen’ me. You don’t even know me! And all I know about you is that you’re a guy with a habit of stirring up trouble wherever you go!”

Jensen’s breathing was going hard and fast. He looked seriously pissed off and it was mesmerizing.

“So you wanna do me a favor? How about you own up to whatever havoc you’ve wreaked down there so that we can leave this place like civilized people?”

Jared shook his head, snorting softly. “You’re something else, you know that?”

He couldn’t believe he was getting an earful from a Harvard college student. 

Anybody else and he would have wrung their necks for talking to him that way.

Jensen held his gaze for just a moment longer. “I’m in this for good, whatever this is. So if you need to kiss something goodbye, make it your devil-may-care attitude and not me.”

Jared bit his lower lip.

He sure as hell wasn't the only one with an attitude here.

"Whatever you say, princess."

He decided not to think about the undeniable, knee-weakening relief inside of him or to acknowledge the way his heart was doing backflips inside his chest either.

Jensen had made his decision.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Happy New Year! I hope you can forgive me for the long break, I had some personal stuff to deal with, but I am back now and I will try to keep the updates coming more regularly. Here's a 10.000-word chapter to say I'm sorry ;) I really hope you liked it! My beta, TheBoys has to put up with my terribly slow writing and irregular posts and I can't say often enough how glad I am to have her reviewing my work. Also, big thanks for your support and lovely words, it is very much appreciated! Reviews make my day, so as always- I would love to hear your thoughts!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning* for bad language, theft and mentions of violence/injuries.

** **

** **

**Open Road  
** **Chapter 8**

The silence in the car was deafening and Jensen couldn’t help feeling like they were on an awkward family road trip.

It was ridiculous.

They had left the hospital pretty quickly after what happened, giving Jensen just enough time to calm down the nurse that Jared had perturbed and to get a quick rundown of Chad’s stats.

As it turned out, Jared hadn’t really done anything too bad, apart from reacting a bit harshly to the news that Sandy had made another appearance. 

“I can’t fucking believe she said she was his wife,” Chris ranted from the passenger seat while Jeff was silently throttling the steering wheel of his truck as they sped down the street.

Jensen stared blankly out the fogged up car window and let out a small sigh.

He didn’t know Sandy or Chad for that matter, but from where he was standing, things really didn’t seem all that complicated.

“Her ex-boyfriend nearly died. Is it really so hard to believe that she wanted to see him after what happened?”

“She sure as fuck didn’t want to see him for the past six months, so yeah it’s hard to believe,” Jared shot back from where he was sprawled out across from Jensen in the back seat.

It was pretty obvious from the way  he was sitting, slightly hunched over with his injured arm cradled protectively against his chest that the shot wound was bothering him, so Jensen pulled an unlabeled, white pill bottle from an inside pocket of his coat and tossed it into his lap.

“You should take one of these,” he said without meeting Jared’s eyes.

They hadn’t really looked at each other since Jared had unexpectedly kissed him in the pediatric ward, the tension between them having only increased.

Jensen had spent the past hour or so mulling things over in his mind- trying to see when they’d gone from playfully flirting to practically _mauling_ each other in a hospital corridor.

And all he could come up with was that the emotions and stress of the past few days had gotten the better of them- that for a fleeting second they had both lost their grip on reality.

There simply was no other explanation for it.

He had always been oddly afraid of showing affection in front of others and now Jared had come along, practically swooping him off his feet and kissing him like there was no tomorrow and Jensen… Jensen had fucking _liked_ it, had let himself been manhandled like a rag doll and enjoyed every second of it.

Thing was, Jensen didn' usually do stuff like that.

He didn’t make out with random strangers.

And then there was Matt, of course. The guy he was _dating_.

It was supposed to be his trump card, the one thing that should be respected by both of them.

He was _taken_ , for god’s sake.

Sure, Jensen had been playing with the thought of ending things with Matt for a while now, but as it was they were still seeing each other and that meant he couldn’t just fool around with someone else.

And then, as if the fucking kiss hadn’t been enough, Jared had tried to cut ties with him.

That bastard had tried to leave him behind at the hospital- tried to kiss him farewell like some goddamned soldier who was about to leave for war. Like Jensen was some freaking damsel in distress- too fragile and vulnerable to be dragged into their messed up lives.

Jared picked the bottle up slowly, rolling it around in his hands, a slight frown marring his forehead.

“The nurse give you these?”

“Yeah, no,” Jensen almost laughed. A bottle of these pills was worth more than 100 bucks. They wouldn’t give them out for free to anyone.

Jared’s eyes flickered up to him for the first time since they had kissed, throat muscle working. “You steal ‘em?”

Jensen was quiet.

He could feel Jeff and Chris’ attention shift onto him as well as the silence dragged on, both of them glancing at him through the rearview mirror.

“Great,” Jeff muttered accusingly from behind the steering wheel, overtaking one of the other drivers in a maneuver that would have cost him his license. “Kid spends two fucking days with us and he’s already corrupted!”

“It’s not something you can buy in the pharmacy, alright?” Jensen justified, slightly irritated. “Besides, they have plenty of that stuff stocked up, so nobody will notice one missing bottle.”

“Way to go, Jenny!” Chris whooped from the passenger seat, pumping a fist in the air like Jensen had just run the marathon or done something equally as impressive. “Maybe I was wrong about you, you know? With that kinda attitude, you’ll fit right in with us.”

Unexpectedly, Jensen found himself smiling at Chris’ words- at the approval in his voice, but the moment was short-lived when Jared’s expression turned grim, jaw set into a tight line. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Oh c’mon, Jay, as if you’ve never helped yourself to a five-finger-discount?”

Jared ignored him. “What if somebody had caught you? You think they’ll ever let you work in a fucking hospital where you’ve stolen pills from before?”

“Nobody caught me.”

Jensen really didn’t get where Jared suddenly got his morals from, they’ve been involved in a firefight, probably using weapons they didn’t have a license for and here he was trying to guilt-trip Jensen for having stolen a bottle of pills?

“They have cameras in the hallways, what if one of them caught a shot of your face?”

“I kept my back turned the entire time. Nobody will find out about this, alright?”

Jared snorted, shaking his head- lips thinned out into a tense line. “I really thought you were smarter than that.”

 _Seriously?_ Jensen bit back a reply. He felt frustrated by Jared’s reaction, insecure and a little foolish for having done it in the first place. 

What was the point in putting his ass on the line if it wasn't even appreciated?

Chris seemed to notice the awkward tension between them and turned around in his seat, giving Jensen a look. “He doesn’t want you to get into trouble because of us. Nothin' personal, you know?”

“Nobody asked you for your fucking opinion,” Jared snapped.

"Alright, enough," Jeff pulled up in front of a ramshackle looking building that was sitting fairly far off the main road of Roxbury. “We’re here. Get your lazy asses out of my car.”

“That’s what you call a car?” Chris grumbled, slamming the door shut behind himself and leaving Jared and Jensen alone in the backseat.

Jensen hesitated- fingers wrapped around the door handle. Then he turned back around, chin lifted in defiance. “Look, you need something to fight any residual risks of a bacterial infection and these pills are gonna do the trick.”

Jared was quiet for a long time, torso twisted away from Jensen as if to flee the conversation. 

Then he slowly turned around, giving Jensen a meaningful look.

“Don’t you ever do reckless shit like that again. Not for me.”

_I’m not worth it._

Jared didn’t have to say the words out loud for them to hang in the air between them.

Before Jensen could say anything in protest Jared had left the car, jogging down the pathway to the store in front of them.

He let out a slow breath, stowing away the self-worth issues that Jared obviously had, as they were something the two would definitely need to talk about at a later point in time.

Jensen warily eyed the crumbling mass of desolation that was the building’s outside façade, big neon-colored letters flickering invitingly as they were lined out above the double-winged entrance door of the bike shop: **_Black Legion Customs_.**

The dirty, chipping window frames were colored a rich shade of red, the dusty glass panes reflecting the warm evening gloom as Jensen eyed the old Vespa behind the display.

The few parking spots in front of the shop were crammed with bikes of all shapes and sizes, ape hangers, duals, cruisers and a particularly beautiful Ducati with a sleek design in black and yellow.

“C’mon geek boy,” Chris prompted, sticking his head out of the doorway when he noticed that Jensen had stopped on the sidewalk. “Don't let Steve catch you ogling his girl like that. He gets possessive, you know?”

 

 

 

The first thing he noticed when he set foot into the store, was the overpowering scent of motor oil, pinewood, and gasoline that saturated the air.

It was dizzying, filling his head like a drug, nestling into his lungs like the cold smoke of a midnight cigarette.

“Addictive, isn’t it?” Chris wrapped an arm around his neck from behind, taking a deep, exaggerated breath through his nose. “That’s the fucking scent of freedom, princess. Better get used to it if you’re gonna be one of us.”   

Jensen snorted, shoving Chris away with a light scowl. 

He had no intention of becoming _‘one of them’_.

The store looked amazing with all the sleek bikes on display and the leather gear on the racks. They even had a jukebox. 

“Yo, Chris, who’s your girlfriend?” Jensen instantly grew sober when a long-haired guy with a blue bib and tattoos running up his neck and arms came around the corner from what looked like a workshop attached to the store.

He was around Chris’ height, slightly less muscle to his frame and twice as much ink on his skin. His hair was a dark shade of gold-blond, much like his own, and he had it pulled up in a messy bun, a few loose strands framing his wide chin and the cut of his stubbled cheeks.

“For the record, that's not my girl,” Chris corrected the guy off with a cocky grin. “He's Jared’s.”

“Shut the fuck up, both of you,” Jared pushed past them into the store, jerking a thumb towards Steve. “Jensen, this wannabe mechanic over here is Steve- Steve, meet Jensen, the guy who helped us out at the hospital.”

Jensen nodded at Steve in an awkward greeting. “Hey.”

_'The guy who helped us out at the hospital.'_

It really shouldn’t have come to a surprise but somehow it still hurt to hear Jared's off-hand introduction. Was that really how they thought of him?

Like some kind of tool- somebody to come in handy when times were tough?

Another _‘flavor of the week’ for Jared_ to have fun with?

Steve eyed Jensen from head to toe, a frown building on his face.

“Wait,” he said, eyes widening. “This is the college kid? What the hell did you bring him for? I thought we were gonna have a meeting.“

“And we will have that meeting,” Jeff suddenly cut in from the side, turning several heads in the room around. “Jensen’s gonna be here for it.”

“What do you mean he’s gonna be here for it? But then he’s gonna hear everything we discuss!”

“Wow, with that kinda logic it’s no wonder we ended up in deep shit,” Jeffrey shook his head and locking the entrance to the store.  “Yeah, I’m aware he’s gonna hear shit, Steve. Guess we’ll all just hope that Jensen’s not a snitch. You can thank Jared for our newest addition to the gang.”

“Woah, hold on for a second, that’s _not_ what I am,“ Jensen raised a palm in protest, but before he could get any further a blond woman in her twenties entered the room.

“New addition to the team?” She piped up, wearing a bright pink bra beneath a grease-smudged white tank top that didn’t leave much to the imagination. It was practically see-through and the washed-out hot pants she was wearing were ripped in too many places to count.

She had a few colorful tattoos running up her legs and arms and so much metal in her face that Jensen wondered how she could even still blink.

“Damn, you were holding out on me, guys,” Her eyes widened when she saw Jensen, running a hungry look over him. “He can stay, full stamp of approval. I’ll even check him for wires if I have to."

“Stop drooling Katie, you’re not gonna dig your teeth into this one,” Steve smirked.

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re his type, sweetheart,” Chris chuckled, clapping the back of Jensen’s neck almost reassuringly, as if to make sure he understood they were just being dicks, _nothing personal, you know?_

Jensen was a little dumbfounded, opening his mouth and then closing it again. This whole conversation was moving so fast it gave him a headache.

“Alright, stop it, all of you. We got some important issues to discuss and the sooner we can get this over with the better,” Jeff thankfully interrupted, sounding annoyed. “In case all of you haven’t heard what happened last night, Jared and Chris paid the fucking Reapers a visit with disastrous results.”

“Wait, you did _what?_ ” Steve exclaimed, rounding the corner of the counter with agitated steps.

Jared caught his friend by his biceps and held him at arm’s length.

“Let’s take it into the garage, alright? I want everyone to be here for this,” he jerked his head towards the auto shop right next to the store and then waited for the people to grudgingly follow his lead.

When Jensen tried to follow the small group over into the garage, Jared blocked the doorway and looked him deep in the eyes. “Last chance to turn around.”

Jensen tilted his head to the side, lips pressed together in determination. “Get out of the way.”

Jared looked at him in silence for another moment, before removing the arm he had propped against the doorframe to let Jensen pass. "Suit yourself."

 

 

Sitting around the worn oak table in a corner of the garage felt odd and Jensen found himself growing increasingly tense as all the gang members started to settle into their seats.

The smell of varnish and fuel lay heavy in the air and the dingy, grease-smeared floor was scattered with motorcycle parts, most of them rusted and ancient looking.

A few more gang members had joined them in the auto shop, one of them decidedly older than the rest.

“Jensen, this is Ty, one of the founders of the gang,” Jeff introduced the surly looking man with a scruffy beard and hooded eyes. 

Jensen didn’t get any welcoming vibes from the guy, so he only gave a curt nod in response. Right next to him sat two more guys who were a little older than the rest, one of them called Sebastian, the other one Mark.

“And I don’t think you’ve met Crawford either,“ Jeff continued in the usual gruff voice as he jerked a thumb towards one of the other newcomers. “He’s a genius in all things IT-related.”

Yeah right, cause what any good motorcycle shop really needed was an _IT-specialist_.

Jensen eyed the guy’s chiseled features and cat-like eyes, his pale complexion with the complimenting auburn mane, an uncomfortable knot swelling in the pit of his stomach.

He rarely ever felt an instant dislike for someone, but something about that Crawford guy didn’t sit well with him.

The clothes he was wearing alone, navy blue V-neck and ripped Jeans- black leather jacket so tight around his arms that it was nearly obscene. 

_God, was everyone in this place a freaking supermodel?_

Jensen’s mouth dried up when the guy flashed him a dazzling smile.

“Guilty as charged,” he flipped his chair around so that his chest could lean against the backrest. “You ever need the answers to one of your prissy college exams, you know who to come to. Then again, looking the way you do, all you probably have to do to get a good grade is get down on your knees and ask real nice.”

Jensen’s jaw set in a firm line, every trace of kindness vanishing from his face. 

A wave of anger bubbled up in his chest, fast and overwhelming.

“Woah, Chase, tune it down, alright?” Chris shot the younger gang member a warning scowl, and then it suddenly hit Jensen— this was Chase.

 _The_ Chase.

Memories drifted to the forefront of his mind, the morning after they had first met, Lucky Charms in the kitchen and Jeff walking in on them almost kissing.

_“Nobody wants to see that shit at eight fucking thirty in the morning. Hell, I’m still half blind from walking in on you and Chase the other night—“_

Jensen turned an ice-cold look on the guy and leaned forward in his chair. “Funny coming from you. I bet you know all about going to your knees and asking someone real nice for something.”

Chase’s eyes clouded over in a red haze, his teeth clenching as he made to move forward “Oh, I’ll fucking show you, you piece of—“

“Alright, that’s it, both of you calm the fuck down,” Jared got up from his chair so quick it got knocked over in the process. He was towering over them, breath heavy in the sudden quiet of the room.

And maybe that was the first time Jensen started to fully realize how huge Jared really was and how intimidating _,_  even compared to the rest of the gang members

“I met Jensen at the Grind’N’Gear show last Sunday and he helped us getting Intel on Chad’s condition. He’s good people and he’s here because we fucking owe him an explanation, so if any of you have a problem with that, they’ll come to me.”

Jared kept his eyes glued to Chase the entire time as if he wasn’t even concerned about disapproval coming from anyone but him.

“Oh c’mon, Jay! The kid doesn’t know shit about what we’re doing and you brought him here without even asking us first! What’s really going on here?”

Wow. This Crawford really didn’t know how to take a hint.

“I said shut it, Chase!” Jared snapped, slamming a fist down on the table and making it rattle. “You wanna know what’s really going on? How about my best friend got chased down the fucking highway by the same sons of bitches that killed my mother? How’s that for a start?”

Jensen flinched, watching Jared’s tall frame hover threateningly over the wooden piece of furniture, almost as if he was contemplating diving over the table and slamming Chase’s face down against it.

It was hard to imagine them _together_ — to imagine them kissing or fucking each other when there was nothing but tension and anger swinging in the air between them.

Jensen tried to shake the images from his mind; Jared grasping Chase’s chin and yanking him in for a dirty kiss, much like he’d done with Jensen earlier that day.

It made Jensen's stomach churn with anger, a surge of irrational jealousy coiling inside him like a snake.

First Genevieve, now this fucking Chase guy… Jensen wouldn’t be surprised if Jared had a thing going with Katie too. Or Steve, for that matter.

After all, he wasn’t exactly the bashful type.

“How do you know the Reapers had anything to do with what happened?” Katie frowned, looking genuinely worried at the mention of the attack. “We haven’t seen any of them in months, didn’t do anything to provoke them.”

“Chris and I found a tape in their headquarters. It’s all on there, the whole fucking thing,” Jared nodded towards Jeff, who lifted up a shiny disc in testament.

There was a rickety TV station in the corner right next to the table and Jeff didn’t waste any time before flicking it on and throwing the DVD in the player. 

The table was eerily quiet as they watched the recording that showed a motorbike getting chased down the highway by two other bikers. 

Jensen watched the emotions dancing across the faces in the group when it came to the actual crash, Chad flying off the motorbike and landing on the tarmac in a heap of broken limbs while the two attackers vanished from sight.

Steve let out a frustrated growl at the sight of the accident, slamming a flat palm against the table while Katie held hands in front of her mouth to hold back any noise that threatened to escape her.

Genevieve, who hadn’t spoken a single word since they’d arrived at the bike store, had tears in her eyes while she watched.

Chris held his eyes averted the entire time, fingers toying with a loose thread on his ripped jeans.

The tape didn’t show the faces of the attackers, but apparently the shape and design of the bikes had been enough to identify them.

“Fucking bastards!” Mark growled out in a murderous tone when the recording ended. “They’ll fucking pay for that.”

“They already did,” Jared announced, shucking his leather jacket to show off his shot wound and a few shocked gasps went through the round.

“Fuck, Jay…” Genevieve was the first one to get up from her seat. “The hell did you do, you reckless idiot?” she stomped over and examined his wound in a way that was half angry, half affectionate and Jensen didn’t know how he felt about the fact that Jared _let_ her.

“Jared and I wreaked havoc on Demasquez and McCoy.”

“Have you two freaking lost it?” Steve got up from his seat as well. “I told you to fucking calm him down _,_ Chris, not to run off and do stupid shit like that. What the hell were you thinking? They’re not gonna let that slide.”

“Oh, but we’re supposed to let their shit slide?” Chris beckoned, grabbing Steve by the lapels of his jacket and yanking him close. “They almost killed Chad, man.”

 _Okay…_ all of this was getting out of hand.

What the hell was he even doing here with all these strangers who were talking about death and bikes and _murder,_  how in the world had he ever thought he was ready for that?

“Everyone, calm the fuck down,” Jared raised both his arms and then winced when the motion jarred his injury.

Oh _right_ , that’s why.

The six-foot-something tall giant next to him was his reason.

Jeff stepped up next to Jared and rested a palm against his back in what was clearly a calming gesture. “He’s right. Yelling at each other won’t get us anywhere.”

“Then what are we supposed to fucking do?” Chase questioned.

Jensen couldn’t help but feel his insides clench with fear at how clueless they all were, how utterly unprepared for everything that’s happened.

They clearly hadn’t thought any of their actions through thoroughly here.

“Listen,” Jensen cleared his throat, watching them turn their heads in surprise at the sound of his voice. “I don’t know what’s going on here, or what exactly happened to your mom—“ Jensen shot Jared an apologetic look before going on. “But clearly this whole thing has gone haywire and someone almost got killed in the process. Don’t you think this tape should be brought to the police as means of evidence? “

“Out of the question,” Jeffrey shook his head before Jensen had even finished his suggestion.

“Why?” Jensen pressed, voice growing a little sharper. “If they’re to blame for this they need to be arrested.”

“We can’t go because we don’t exactly smell of roses either, alright?” Jeff shot back, sounding annoyed to have let that tidbit of information slip.

Jensen let out a slow breath, trying to process that.

He had already figured that they weren’t all innocent either- the guns and blood and ‘no-hospitals-rule’ kind of giving them away, but suppressing evidence for attempted murder? How much did they have to fucking lose if they were willing to go that far?

“Whatever you’ve done sure can’t be worse than attempted homicide.”

“Maybe not,” Jeff gave back, pouring himself a glass of whiskey from a rickety bar in the corner of the garage. “But it could still get us into jail.”

“So give them an anonymous tip! Just drop the damn tape off at the police station and run.”

Jensen couldn’t believe he was advising them on how to avoid the law without even knowing what the heck they had done. 

Mike and Tom would throttle him if they ever found out about this.

But there was something about Jared and Jeff and even the rest of the gang that made it impossible for him to believe that they were bad people, that they were out to harm others.

No, they might have stolen a thing here or there, maybe broken a few speed limits, but they weren’t _criminals_.

“No can do, Freckles,” Chris shot back, before lighting up a cigarette. “As soon as they think Chad was involved in more than just an accident, their files will lead them straight to us.”

“And then what, what are they gonna find that will get all of you behind bars, huh? A few parking tickets, bar brawls? Drunk driving?”

Jensen wasn’t stupid. He had noticed the presence of firearms and he had a sinking suspicion that whatever they Jared and Chris had done at that clubhouse last night had ended badly.

But if he wanted to help them, he needed details and they weren’t gonna tell him anything unless provoked.

“It doesn’t matter, alright,” Jared sighed, scrubbing his tattooed fingers over his face in a tired gesture, ring finger covered by a platinum band Jensen had never noticed before.

Right above the jewelry were three little stars, inked in different colors. Jensen eyed them curiously, adding the piece of ink to the collection of tats he had previously stored away in his mind.

“All you need to know right now is that the cops aren’t really in the cards for us, okay?”

“No not okay. You said it yourself, Jared, someone tried to kill your best friend and you’re holding valid evidence in your hands to prove who it was. Don’t you want them to pay for what they’ve done?”

“It’s not that easy, believe us,” Chris cut in from the side. 

He got up from his seat and rounded the table to grab a beer from a discarded cooler.

“Explain it to me, then,” Jensen was starting to get slightly frustrated. How was he supposed to help them if they didn’t trust him enough to pull out the hidden skeletons from the closet?

Jeff sighed heavily, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms in front of his chest. “About 15 years ago, this gang was working a heist with the Reapers.”

“A _heist_?” Jensen’s eyebrows jumped up to his hairline, his heart pumping away erratically in his chest.

“Fucking seriously, Jeff?” Genevieve exclaimed- shoving away from the table with an annoyed huff of her own. “Why don’t we just turn ourselves in straight away?”

Jeffrey ignored her, never taking his eyes off of Jensen as he recounted the story. “We were trying to smuggle weapons from El Paso over the Mexican border but things went wrong- it was a huge clusterfuck.”

_Gun trafficking._

Jensen closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down. He had already expected something like this but it was a different story to hear it out loud. “You were running guns with the Reapers?”

“That was almost twenty years ago,” Jared cut in, grabbing Jensen’s arm and holding it tight. “It was before most of us even entered the club, we haven’t been doing shit like that in fucking _years_.”

“He’s right,” Steve chimed in from the side. “Whatever went down that day is in the past.”

“Obviously not, if people are still getting killed over it!”

When he looked back at Jared, his eyes were intense, drilling into the other man as if he could somehow see straight through him. “Jay, how much value are we talking here, man? I mean, was it just a few… or–“

Illegal trade of firearms was estimated to reach up to 250 million per year in the US alone. People got 25 to life for that shit, the amount of money involved in that kind of dirty business was ridiculous.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jeff explained darkly, wayward look in his eyes. “We got busted… the whole thing went to shit and we barely got away in time. That day we called a truce because neither of us wanted to get their hands dirty.”

“But they didn’t stick to the rules?” Jensen guessed.

Jared tensed on the seat next to him, expression closed off and distant.

Jeffrey gave the taller man an empathetic look, features twisted up with pain. “It’s complicated… but essentially, no, they didn’t. The truce was broken when…”

“When they shot my mom,” Jared finished where Jeff had left off, looking up at Jensen with dead resignation and grief written all over his face, almost as if to dare the other man to ask another question- to dig deeper into this whole, god-awful, bloody mess.

Jensen blinked. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, barely audible to the rest of the table because the words were meant for Jared only.

Something flickered across Jared’s face, there and gone again, before he visibly pulled himself together. “It doesn’t matter. It’s been a long time… what matters now, is that they’re gonna retaliate for what we’ve done, so we need to be on guard. All of us.”

“No, we need to end this thing. Once and for all,” Jeffrey insisted. “We can’t have them come after us again. Where’s all of this gonna end, huh? When every last one of us is in the hospital or worse? I can’t let that happen.”

Jensen agreed with that. It sounded like most of the people on this table didn’t have anything to do with the heist anyway, so it only made sense for Jeff to try and make up for his mistakes.

But Jared seemed to have a different opinion. “No fucking way.”

“Jay—“ Jeff sighed, but Chris and Steve were already shaking their heads as well.

“You go over there right now and they’ll kill you on the spot. You can’t do that,” Chris said vehemently. “You didn’t see the fucking mess we left behind. Jeff, you can’t.”

Jeff chuckled; a dark sound without amusement. “Watch me.”

“Hold on a second, Jeff, do you think that’s a smart idea?” Jensen interrupted, feeling his insides churn at the thought of more people getting hurt or even killed over something that happened two decades ago.

If Jensen had learned anything at all about Jared, it was that the guy was loyal to a fault. He wouldn’t let Jeffrey meet a gang member without tagging along and showing his face too soon after the shooting probably wasn’t the smartest idea.

“Who asked you, anyway?” Genevieve shot back angrily, flipping her hair over her shoulder in raw attitude. “You think you can come here and pretend to be one of us- pretend to know what’s best for us just because you’re some privileged college kid? You’re nothing like us, you don’t even know how to ride a fucking bike. Why should we listen to anything you say?”

Jensen went rigid with fury, fixating her with a look that would have frozen the pacific.

Then he rubbed a hand across his face and got up from his seat, grabbing his jacket and turning his back on them all.

“You’re right. What was I thinking, trying to help you out?” he huffed out, shaking his head before heading out the door.

 

 

Jensen stepped out into the cool evening air, feeling the icy wind tousle his hair. His fingers felt wooden and stiff when he fished the battered pack of smokes from the bottom of his messenger bag.

It has been a while since he’d craved a cigarette like this. 

He flipped the lid and the zippo flared, a bright flame leaping out of the dark recesses of the ignition chamber.

Jensen didn’t turn around when the door to the store creaked open behind him, just took a deep drag of his cigarette and dropped down on the edge of the dirty sidewalk.

He could feel Jared’s eyes on his back, could feel the other man’s presence like a physical thing, heavy and sultry in the air between them, drawing them closer.

“I really didn’t peg you for the smoking type,” Jared said calmly and Jensen could just imagine the way he would dip his head forward, stupid bangs falling into his eyes. “These things can kill you, you know?”

Jensen snorted, spitting a glob of saliva on the ground next to his feet. 

“Not as surely as running an illegal gun trade from here to Mexico could.”

Jared stepped forward, head hung low and hair all over his face, just like Jensen had envisioned.

The smoke hung in the air between them, shifting like fog in an alley at midnight.

Jensen’s fingers were still shaking with residual anger over what Genevieve had said, over the reveal of their criminal involvement and he wasn’t really sure if he could talk about it right now, if he would even find any words.

“Genevieve can be a bitch if she wants to,” Jared breathed out slowly before sinking down onto curb beside Jensen, brushing their legs together so casually it barely even happened. “She can also be an amazing person if you know her well enough.“

Jensen pressed the butt of the cigarette to his lips, inhaling a mouthful of smoke and feeling it eddying coolly down his throat. 

“Guess I don’t know her well enough, then.”

He puffed it out in rings, watching them dance in the air for a second before they began to wobble out of shape and taper away.

“Look, man, I know this is a lot to take in,” Jared looked away. “And I also know that if you were really as smart as you claim to be, you’d be running in the opposite direction after everything you’ve just heard and never once look back, but…”

“But what?” Jensen flicked his cigarette away, letting out a long, hard breath. “Jared, I wanna help you guys, really, but you’re talking gun trafficking and shooting people in the head and trying to withhold hard evidence to attempted murder. I just… how exactly am I supposed to fall into that picture?”

Jared combed fingers through his hair, the three little tattooed stars vanishing beneath thick strands. “This was your fucking choice, Jensen. You wanted to know what happened with the Reapers and we told you. Nobody’s forcing you to stay, alright? Hell, you’ve done enough for us as it is. I don’t even know why you’re still here.”

Jensen kicked at a pebble on the road, watching it jump and slither across the ground.

Then he straightened up, dusting the dirt from his jeans, before looking up to meet Jared’s gaze.

“Because I like you,” he said, shaking his head at how pathetic that sounded, especially given the circumstances. 

He watched Jared’s throat work, the perched wolf tattoo on his neck dancing with the motion. It was mesmerizing.

“I even like Chris and Jeff,” Jensen snorted in disbelief over how true the statement felt. 

Sure they were gruff around the edges and all, but at the end of the day, Jensen wanted to believe that they were nice guys, the kind that good stories were made of.

They weren’t mindless killers or gun dealers.

No fucking way.

“If I leave now and never turn back like you suggested, I’m never gonna stop wondering what happened to you. But if I stay close- I can… I could patch you up, help you out somehow. I can keep you from doing something stupid like running into the waiting arms of your enemies.”

“Yeah, or you could put yourself smack in the middle of a war you don’t have anything to do with. Put your career at risk... your entire life."

"It won't be that bad."

Jared shook his head, expression made of stone.

"It already is."

There was a moment of silence, then Jensen swallowed.

“Maybe you’ll just have to look out for me, then,” he dropped his head, words barely distinguishable over the soft howl of the wind that gusted through the streets.

He had always taken pride in the fact that he was tall and in good shape, self-confident in every way that mattered.

So the urge to let himself be vulnerable around Jared, to allow himself to feel safe in somebody else's presence was new to him.

Jared cupped Jensen’s cheek with his palm. “I will never let you get hurt under my watch, you hear me?”

Jensen closed his eyes as he allowed the words to wash through him, the protectiveness and vehemence in Jared’s tone like a soothing balm for his soul. God, he couldn’t believe he was actually doing this.

“Okay,” he rasped in a shaky voice, nodding his head almost erratically. “I mean I’m not… I’ve got my own life, Jay, my own friends, and responsibilities, but I can’t just turn my back and pretend none of this ever happened. “

“Jensen,” Jared said softly, looking deep into his eyes. “This life is dangerous. We’re trying to build a life for ourselves and doing something good with it, but these fucking bastards,” Jared spat out. “Are trying to take that away from us.”

Jensen swallowed down any potential of a response, his rationality lost in the depth of Jared’s whisky-colored eyes.

“I can’t let that happen. The people in there,” Jared gestured towards the garage without taking his eyes off Jensen. “They might be assholes most of the time, but they’re all I have. They’re my family and I’d do anything for them. So, if you decide to stick around if you really want to stay in touch, that means you’re part of the group. Doesn’t fucking matter if you can ride a bike or if you’re looking the part. You’ll be one of us… and the Legion takes care of their own.”

Jensen had seen their tight friendship firsthand, had witnessed how far they were willing to go for each other several times during the few days he’d spent at their side and it was _enticing._

It was a tempting offer to be part of a group this fierce, a community this strong.

But it came at a high price.

“I can’t get involved in any of this illegal shit, Jared, I just…” Jensen’s voice tethered off brokenly.

He was willing to follow Jared, to be part of that family, but not at the expense of his own personality or his own life.

“You won’t,” Jared said, words having a finality to them that didn’t leave room for protest. “None of what happened between the Reapers and the Legion will ever affect you. I won’t let it.”

“And how exactly do you think that’s gonna work?” Jensen asked, shaking his head. “We just call each other if we need somebody to talk? Do I drop by whenever you need someone to sew your limbs back on?"

Sarcasm had always been a trademark of his… Jensen could literally feel his defensive walls building at the absurdity of Jared’s suggestions.

How could he become part of them without getting involved in all aspects of the gang’s business? Without inevitably getting his own hands dirty in the process?

“I think I have a better suggestion,” Jared smiled- lips curled up in a faraway look that gave his sharp features an unnaturally soft edge. He got up from the curb- holding out an arm for Jensen.

“C’mon, I wanna show you something.”

Jensen stared at the palm for a few seconds before interlacing his fingers with Jared’s tattooed ones.

 

 

Jared led Jensen back out to the backyard, where all the old and useless metal parts from broken down cars and motorcycles were stored as raw materials for whatever project they were working on at the moment.

Not even a week ago, they had retrieved a rather impressive two-stroke engine from a broken down 1983 Yamaha. Steve had nearly cried at the beauty of it and confiscated it for one of the countless tailor-made machines he was working on.

Poor guy would have probably spent less time and money on buying an entirely new engine instead of remodeling the old one, but whatever… Jared wasn’t going to question his friend’s work- especially not after having seen some of Steve’s incredible work.

Guy was one hell of a mechanic, even if Jared wouldn’t be caught dead saying that out loud.

“Hey, Steve?” he yelled, voice bouncing off the junks and scraps of scavenged vehicles.

Sure enough, his friend jogged up to where they had stopped right in front of the hydraulic Black Widow motorcycle lift and shot them a questioning look.

“’Sup?” he eyes Jensen suspiciously before glancing back at Jared with a cocky smirk. “Untwisted your panties, princess?”

“I wanna show Jensen our pride and joy,” Jared nodded towards the grease-smudged white tarp covering their newest addition to the store.

Steve’s forehead wrinkled.

“The fuck for?” he asked suspiciously and Jared instantly tightened his fingers on Jensen’s wrist when he felt the younger man tug on it in an effort to flee the scene.

“Jared, just leave it, alright? If he doesn’t want to show me what he’s working on, that’s okay—“

“Well, it’s not his fucking decision to make,” Jared cut him off in a sharp voice, never taking his eyes off of the long-haired mechanic in front of him. “I’m the one who bought her and that makes me the one to call the shots here, right, Steve?”

Steve hesitated for just a second longer, obvious reluctance in his moves when he finally stepped over the extensive shop kit with the dolly and tire bead breaker to take off the tarp. “Whatever you say, asshole. Better get fucking _laid_ for making me expose this beauty before she’s finished.”

Jared ignored his friend’s grumbling and tugged Jensen forward until the younger man was standing right in front of the motorbike that sat proudly atop the scissor jack.

“You know what this is?”

“A motorcycle?” Jensen grimaced, obviously having no clue what they were dealing with. He was shuffling his feet, eyeing the sleek design of the silver fuel tank and the smooth curl of the exhaust pipe with something akin to trepidation.

It was oddly satisfying to see him so out of his element for once.

Jared was almost tempted to let him struggle for a little while longer, but his own pride and joy over their most recent acquisition, their _prize,_   was quickly overcoming his gleefulness.

“Oh, believe me, freckles- this is so much more than just a bike,” Steve growled out almost protectively, crossing his bulky arms in front of his soiled flannel shirt.

“That’s a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952. It’s an absolute legacy among bikers and one of the rarest machines to date, only 31 of them having rolled off production in the early 50’s. It’s one of the fastest going vintage bikes ever made- gets up to 200 at top speed.”

Jensen’s eyes widened a little as he took a step closer, hesitantly lifted his fingers to the displayed beauty in front of him.

Sure, she was unfinished- lacking an engine and a new set of tires and a whole bunch of other stuff they would need to work on in the next couple of months, but once she was all fixed up… _fuck_ , she was gonna be breathtaking.

“Why are you showing me this?” Jensen cast a nervous glance over his shoulder at Jared, doubtlessly trying to find out the purpose of him being here.

Jared took a slow breath, glancing up at Steve in his hope that the other man was going to keep his shit together for the proposal he had in store for Jensen.

“Chad used to do design work for us- he’s the fucking best when it comes to the varnishing and highlighting of finished bikes. Without him, we would have never gotten so much attention as a shop, never gotten to display our work at big trade shows like the Grind’n’Gear.”

Jensen frowned. “I don’t understand.“

“We’re invited to do an exhibit on an international biker show in April, Jensen. The gang and I are gonna make this beauty here—“ he patted the bike’s worn leather seat. “The star of the event. And since Chad’s probably not gonna be able to work on it until then, I’ll offer you to take over the design work as part of your art project.”

“You’re joking,” Jensen gaped at him with wide, glistening eyes, mouth hanging slightly open. 

He was beautiful in the dim evening glow, face pale and impeccable beneath the shine of their work lights.

“Are you freaking kidding me, Jay? We don’t even know if the kid’s able to do that,“ Steve threw his arms to the side, looking disheveled and annoyed. “He doesn’t know the first thing about motorcycles!”

Jared shrugged. “He's got us now. He’ll learn.”

Steve wasn’t convinced. “Oh yeah, sure, he’s just gonna learn _everything_ there’s to learn about bikes in what, 6 fucking months?”

Jared tilted his head to the side, eyes casually sliding over to Jensen. “How many bikes did I say were produced of this kind?”

Jensen licked his lower lip, eyes flashing as he quickly caught on with the program. “Thirty-one.”

“Year of production?” Jared cocked an eyebrow.

Jensen didn’t even blink. “1952.”

“Alright, I fucking get it, wonderboy paid attention to what you just said, doesn’t mean he can design a bike of this class, alright? It takes a lot of talent and experience to work on a bike like this and you fucking know it.”

Jared shrugged. “We all started somewhere and Jensen's got this. He’s gonna rock the hell out of this bike.”

“Jay, he’s right. I don’t- I mean, this is a really great offer but you need somebody qualified to do this and I’m—“

“And you’re one talented son of a bitch who just so happens to be a fast learner,” Jared finished for him, voice laced with undeniable confidence in Jensen’s abilities.

He made sure to catch the younger man’s eyes, hoping to convey how big of a deal this was, how much confidence and trust he was putting into this near-stranger who had helped them so unconditionally.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, Jensen.  You get to do your art project, we get our bike and everyone’s a fucking winner.”

Jensen was perfectly still for a moment, eyes wide and unblinking as his gaze flickered back and forth between the Black Lighting and Jared.

Then his lips gave the merest of twitches, a spark of passion flickering across his features and Jared knew they’d just found the perfect excuse to see each other again. “Alright.”

“Yeah?” Jared grinned, face lighting up at Jensen’s answer.

"Yeah, let’s do it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you lovely people :) Hope you're all still enjoying! As promised, I'm gonna try to keep the updates coming more regularly now but your reflections and ideas/suggestions are always very much appreciated, so don't be shy! I know the story's moving at a languid pace, but from here on out, it will pick up some speed. As always, a huge THANK YOU goes out to my lovely beta, TheBoys!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for bad language, mentions of injuries

** **

** **

**Open Road  
** **Chapter 9**

When Jensen arrived on campus almost two hours after Jared’s big reveal, he was about ready to faceplant into his mattress, completely drained from everything that had happened during the day.

He found the door unlocked and pushed through, surprised to see Tom sprawled out all alone on their sofa, cradling a box of ice cream to his chest.

Coming to a full stop, Jensen scanned his friend from head to toe, taking in the bathrobe, slippers and the barely noticeable shadows beneath his eyes.

“You and Mike didn’t break up, did you?”

Tom snorted into his container of Ben and Jerry’s, and Jensen relaxed.

It was safe to say that Tom would be curled up in a corner somewhere and sobbing his heart out if they had actually broken up, not that that was something Jensen ever expected to happen.

He toed his shoes off before plopping down on the couch and licking a bit of cookie dough ice cream from his friend’s spoon.

“Get your own,” Tom punched Jensen’s shoulder in playful protest. “You don’t live here anymore. I rented out your room to a hot Argentinian fitness instructor.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Jensen grinned, lips and teeth coated with ice cream. “You love me too fucking much for that.”

He pecked Tom’s cheek with his sticky mouth and the taller man grimaced, wiping the brown mess from his face. “Oh but I did. His name’s José. We were having hot and steamy sex on your bed just an hour ago.”

Jensen threw his head back in laughter. “Gross, dude. You guys better not have soiled my sheets or I’m gonna tell Mike about your little love affair.”

Tom let out a heavy sigh, the smile slowly melting from his features and Jensen instantly sobered up at the worry marring his friend’s features.

”Seriously, though, you two are okay, right?”

Tom nodded his head, not meeting Jensen’s eyes. “Yeah… yeah we’re fine, just— Jensen, can I ask you something?” he looked up with an insecure expression, fingers toying with the seam of his bathrobe. 

“Like you ever have to ask,” Jensen sat up, forehead furrowed in concern. “What’s bugging you?”

Tom raised his eyes to look at him and the intensity of his blue-eyed stare made Jensen shiver. “Why do you care so much about this Jared guy? I mean I get why you helped him in the beginning, but what’s in it for you now?”

Jensen was quiet for a long time.

Then he sighed, looking down at his hands.

“Jared made me an offer today,” he shook his head, thinking about the Black Lighting- her massive exhaust pipe and the worn leather seat that wore enough wrinkles and blemishes to tell a thousand stories. “He wants me to design a bike for them, for my art project.”

Tom’s eyebrows rose to his hairline, mouth falling open as he stared at Jensen incredulously. “He wants you to design a motorcycle for him?”

Yeah, Jensen knew it sounded ridiculous.

He wasn’t an art major yet, didn’t have the slightest clue about bikes or anything related to them and here Jared was, offering him this job like Jensen wasn’t bound to epically fail at it.

“Looks like,” Jensen tried to shrug it off, tried not to let his giddiness show

Because Tom wouldn’t understand the excitement that rose up at him at the opportunity to work with Jared and the Black Legion, to spend more time with the gang, get to know them better.

He hadn’t seen them interact- hadn’t taken a bite out of that forbidden apple and tasted the danger- the _thrill_ , the paralyzing, mind-numbing adrenaline that came with their lifestyle.

But Jensen had.

And he had fucking loved every second of it.

Had grown addicted to the high, the adrenaline, the thrill of it all.

It was like Jared had stirred an underground beast deep down inside of him and made it surge back to life with a vengeance.

“It’s not a design in the conventional sense,” Jensen explained. “I’m not going to decide which parts to put together or anything. They just want me to draft a few sketches for the varnish.”

Tom was taking in the information, visibly distraught by the news.

And rationally Jensen knew his friend was just worried about him- didn’t want him to get exploited or heartbroken or hurt in the process of befriending a biker gang, but he still couldn’t help feeling a little hurt by the lack of his best friend’s enthusiasm. “Gee, don’t get too excited.”

“What do you want me to say, here, Jensen?” Tom drove his hands through his thick auburn locks and got up from his seat on the couch, face closed off in passive anger. “Do you want me to congratulate you for suddenly being besties with a bunch of thugs? These people could be involved in _god-knows-what_ and you’re willingly putting yourself in the line of fire. I mean now you’re even working for them!”

“So what?” Jensen challenged, rising out of his seat as well. “What exactly is your problem, here? Is it some kind of weird jealousy you’re feeling or are you just being your usual arrogant self?

It was a low blow, but the fact that Tom had such a low opinion of Jared and the gang made Jensen bristle with a weird sort of protectiveness, an inexplicable need to defend these people from the judgmental eye of somebody who knew _nothing_ about them.

Jensen could tell that it took about every fiber of Tom’s being to hold back his anger.

“My _problem_ ,” he spoke slowly. “Is that you apparently stopped thinking with your upstairs brain. You really too fucking blind to see that Jared’s only trying to get into your pants, Jensen? That guy doesn’t give a fuck about you or your art project, all he sees in you is a pretty face.”

Jensen took a step back, almost like he’d taken a physical blow, hurt cloying thick and sour in his stomach. 

Tom backpedaled almost instantly, realizing he had gone too far. “Jen…”

“No, you’re right,” Jensen cut him off, voice clipped and hollow. “How naïve of me to assume somebody was actually interested in _me_ for once and not just out for a cheap lay.”

“Jensen, c’mon, I didn’t mean—“ Tom would have said more if someone hadn’t picked that exact moment to knock on their door.

They both froze, not really taking their eyes off each other until the banging grew louder, more persistent.

Well, fuck if that wasn’t perfect timing.

Jensen quirked an eyebrow _‘You expecting someone?’_   and Tom shrugged, shaking his head _‘No’_.

He washed a shaking hand over his face, closing his eyes and letting out a sigh. It would be so easy to just ignore whoever was standing outside their door, but Jensen was sick and tired of fighting with Tom and he really didn’t want for their discussion to get out of hand.

The sight that greeted him upon opening the door made him regret his decision almost instantly.

_Oh no._

Matt was leaning heavily against the wall of the hallway, shirt half unbuttoned and hair a tousled mess, the stench of whiskey clinging to him like a second layer of skin.

His eyes were threaded so densely with scarlet veins that it almost looked demonic.

Jensen couldn’t believe this shit.

“Matt. What are you doing here?” He sent a fleeting glance through the hallway, relieved to find it relatively empty. Whatever this was, it was going to be awkward enough without an audience.

“Hey, baby… m-missed ya,” Matt stumbled forward, nearly toppling over the door frame in his advance.

He reached out to grasp Jensen’s face with sweaty fingers, eyes glistening with a strange adoration that sent a cold shiver down Jensen’s spine. “F-finally found yer way back h-home, huh?”

Jensen brushed the unwanted touch off, taking a step back. “You’re drunk, Matt. You need to go home and sleep it off. We can talk tomorrow.”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say because as soon as Jensen had released Matt’s hand, the man shot forward, grabbing Jensen by his shirt and gruffly shoving him back against the doorframe.

“So you can go on s-screwin’ round behind my back some more? Offering yourself up to this guy like a w-whore? I don’t think so.”

Jensen’s breath hitched when Matt slammed a fist against the wooden doorframe right next to his face.

He flinched back in shock but before he could do anything else, Tom was right there, grabbing a fistful of Matt’s flannel shirt and wrenching him back with so much force, it sent the man flying to the ground. “Get the fuck off him!”

Jensen thought he’d seen Tom angry before but he really hadn’t.

This right here was 6-feet of bristling muscle mass building a steel front between Jensen and the guy who had just dared to overstep his boundaries.

“Listen up, Matt. You’re ten sheets to the fucking wind right now and I don’t give a shit why or how it happened  but so help me god, you ever say stuff like that to him again, you ever touch a fucking hair on his body and I’ll rip you _apart_ , you hear me?”

Tom took a threatening step towards Matt, who suddenly looked pale and incredibly pathetic, sprawled out on the floor with his crumpled clothes and bloodshot eyes. “I asked if you understood!”

“Tom, stop it,” Jensen finally found his voice and placed a shaking hand on Tom’s shoulder. He didn’t want for things to escalate any further.

The last they needed right now was for other students to get drawn out of their rooms by the ruckus.

“Jensen, g-god, I don’t… I didn’t—“ Matt stammered, blue eyes wide and glistening with tears of shameful regret. “I’m s-so sorry. I don’t even know how—“

“Just go home, alright?” Jensen cut him off, feeling drained and miserable after the turn of events. “Go get some rest.”

Tom pulled Jensen back inside before closing the door and locking it firmly. When he turned to look Jensen in the eye, his expression was one of utter seriousness, gaze intense. “He ever done anything like this before?”

“What? _No_ ,” Jensen shook his head, releasing his nervous tension in a shaky laugh. “You think he’s beating me up or something?”

“Jen, I need you to be honest with me, here. Did he ever show any signs of aggression towards you or verbally abused you in any way?”

The mere thought was ridiculous. Matt had been a grade-A gentleman during the weeks they’d been dating, opening doors for him and being affectionate, respectful in every way that mattered.

Whatever just happened, it had come totally unexpected.

“Verbally abused?” Jensen repeated incredulously. “No, alright? He’s never done anything like this before. He’s never even had a drop of alcohol in my presence.”

In the two months, they’d spent dating, Matt had turned down every offer for a cold beer or a sip of wine, had even played designated driver and lectured everyone around him on the dangers of alcohol consumption.

It hadn’t really bothered Jensen, in fact, he had always suspected that there was an underlying reason for the guy’s aversion to alcohol.

Maybe a relative had been addicted? Or a friend or family member had gotten hit by a drunk driver?

Jensen had never bothered to ask, but now he kind of wished he had gotten to the bottom of things.

“Maybe he’s just one of these guys who can’t handle their liquor.”

Tom didn’t look convinced, his jaw locked tight as he stared off into the distance. “You can’t ever let him talk to you that way, you understand? Not ever.”

Jensen swallowed. Maybe part of the reason why he tried to make excuses for Matt’s behavior was because the guy hadn’t been all wrong. After all, Jensen _had_ made out with Jared behind Matthew’s back.

Of course, that didn’t give him any right to knock Jensen around and call him a slut, but to be fair Matt had been totally shitfaced and everyone knew that jealousy didn’t mix well with alcohol.

“Yeah, listen, I’m kinda beat so,” Jensen gestured vaguely at his bedroom, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly without really meeting his friend’s gaze. 

He felt oddly guilty for what happened, like it was partly his fault and he really didn’t want to talk about it any longer.

Jensen turned towards his room and then stopped, shooting a last glance at Tom over his shoulder. “Hey, uh… thanks for—“

“Shut up, man,” Tom gave back, shaking his head. “Like you have to thank me for that.”

Jensen smiled back but it was strained, didn’t really reach his eyes.

Once the door locked behind him, he knocked his head back against the oak wood and slid to the floor, eyes squeezed shut and fingers shaking.

How had everything gotten so fucking complicated in only just a handful of days?

 

 

The week that followed passed in a blur with Jensen spending most of his days hiding away in the library to avoid Matt and Tom and generally everyone else around him.

He had found a bouquet of roses on his doorstep the morning after Matt had paid them the rather unpleasant visit. Attached had been a letter but Jensen hadn’t read it.

He had also ignored the thirty-three text messages and fifteen missed calls on his phone, successfully brushing off every single one of Matt’s attempts at reconciliation.

He told himself he was just letting some time pass before dealing with what happened, but frankly, he wasn’t ready to face Matt yet and listen to whatever excuses the guy had come up with.

It wasn’t until the day before finals, with Jensen half-heartedly browsing through his anatomy book, when his phone started vibrating again.

Sighing heavily, Jensen dug it out of his bag and then nearly choked on his tongue when he saw Jared’s name on the display.

He flicked it open before he had even really thought about it, heart in his throat as he blurted out, “I’m in the library.”

And then proceeded to squeeze his eyes shut in embarrassment.

_I’m in the library?_

Real fucking smooth. What the hell was wrong with him?

There was a moment of silence from the other end and then a gruff chuckle, a guttural sound that stirred something deep inside of him.

“Oh yeah? Well, I'm in the parking lot,” Jared gave back, the smile evident in his words. “Parked right in front of the library, actually. Thought I’d check in with you, see if you’re up for a ride.”

Jensen’s mouth dried up. “Wait you’re here? Like right now?”

Another chuckle, deep and throaty. “Look out the window.”

Jensen rose from his seat and nearly tripped over his own bag in his haste to get to a window. Grip tight and sweaty around his phone, he peered outside the double-framed glass and his heart skipped a beat when he saw Jared’s Harley glint alluringly in the autumn sun.

Jared was leaning casually against the bike, wearing a pair of ripped jeans and the leather jacket he had on the first time they both met at the fair. His aviators were perched low on his nose, brown hair falling into his eyes as he lit up a cigarette and took a deep drag.

“Smoking isn’t allowed on the campus grounds,” Jensen said, tongue sneaking out to lick over his bottom lip.

Jared smiled, glinting up against the sun to meet Jensen’s gaze across the parking lot and through the window glass. “How about taking phone calls in the library? That allowed?”

Smoke curled up lazily from the end of the cigarette Jared kept perched in the corner of his mouth.

“Give me five minutes,” Jensen swallowed.

“Make it two,” Jared ordered.

Jensen made it out in less than one.

 

 

The ride back to the garage was fast and dirty.

Jared had told Jensen to hold tight, to rest his head against Jared’s back because it would help with the sickness and when the younger man complied without as much as a word in protest, Jared counted it a win.

He steadied Jensen when he climbed off the backseat, holding on a little tighter than necessary and swiping a thumb over the sleek cut of Jensen’s jaw line in an intimate greeting. “Feelin’ alright?”

“Yeah,” Jensen nodded his head, but his face was a little pale and Jared didn’t miss the way his legs staggered with dizziness. It did all kinds of things to him, seeing Jensen this trusting, devoid of all his usual defense mechanisms and the snarky attitude.

Jared doubted the younger man even noticed the transition from gruff and defensive to this much softer, more vulnerable side of himself.

“C’mon,” Jared kept his arm slung around the younger man’s middle in a steadying grip, leading him towards the back entrance of the garage. “Store isn’t too busy today, so I thought I’d run you through some basics. What do you say?”

“Basics?” Jensen frowned.

“On how to fix up bikes,” Jared elaborated with a loose shrug, holding the door to their auto shop open for Jensen. “I know that’s not what you’re helping us with but I figured it wouldn’t hurt for you to know a thing or two.”

As soon as Jensen stepped into the garage, his eyes fell onto Chris, who was shirtless and bent over a sporty looking motorcycle, dropping a grease-smeared screwdriver to the ground with a loud clatter and wiping his hands on a dirty rug.

“Jenny,” Chris nodded at him, holding out a fist and it took Jensen a moment to realize he was supposed to bump it.

Jared chuckled. “Alright, let’s get you started. You should drop the shirt if you want to keep it. Katie, toss me that bottle of soda over there."

Jensen looked down on himself with a slight grimace. He was wearing a nice pair of dark jeans and a crisp white shirt with a floral pattern. It was his typical run-of-the-mill college outfit, maybe a little nicer than usually, because he’d had a presentation in one of his morning classes. He didn’t want to get it dirty, but undressing in front of everyone seemed even worse.

“Give the kid a break,” Steve laughed in a smoky voice, taking a sip from his beer as he sat back down onto the green cooler that was conveniently placed in front of the engine he’d been working on. “Just because you can’t wait to get him naked, doesn’t mean he needs to give us all a strip tease. I, for one, am not interested.”

“Well, nobody asked you for your opinion, Carlson,” Katie commented from the side, hitting the back of Steve’s head with a disapproving frown. “You better not have messed up my one chance at seeing him naked.”

Jensen flushed, squirming uncomfortably under her scrutiny.

“Great. Now you’ve made him all shy and embarrassed.”

Jared chucked his leather jacket. “I got a few old shirts in a duffle somewhere. Let me go grab you one.”

Jensen stared at his retreating back for a second, before his attention was drawn back to Chris, whose whole body was covered in colors, rich thick lines and dark shading across his back muscles and shoulders in one continuous tattoo. 

The ink trailed down along the line of his spine, over his right arm and another smaller tattoo was creeping out from underneath the waistband of his gaping jeans.

“Like what you see?” Chris grinned, wiggling his eyebrows. He blew a stray tuft of hair out of his face and flexed his muscles to show off the artwork that covered almost every inch of his torso.

“Which one did you get first?” Jensen smiled, genuinely curious.

Chris pointed at a nautical star on his hip bone. It was slightly frizzy along the edges and the shading was a bit off, almost as if someone else had gone over it a second time, retracing the lines with a steadier hand. “This baby, right here. Got it from a friend of mine back in high school.”

“He got the clap from that same fucking friend,” Genevieve cut in from the side and Chris flipped her off in return.

“You’re just jealous of my ink, sweetheart,” he replied with a cocky look, grinning from ear to ear. “And who could fucking blame you? I’m a piece of art, in and fucking _out_.”

“More like a piece of shi—“

Jensen cleared his throat, breaking Steven off before returning his attention to the colorful tat on Chris’ body- particularly the nautical star on his left hip. “What does it stand for?”

Chris wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “It’s so I don’t forget where I’m from, or where I’m headed. It’s for guidance… a reminder to always follow my instincts and my heart.”

“My god, I think I’m gonna throw up,” Genevieve rolled her eyes, tossing a dirty rag at Chris’ head, but Jensen’s eyes never left the man. It was the first time Chris had said something to him that was a hundred percent honest and not just meant as a teasing comment. 

“Did I miss anything?” Jared strolled through the doorway, carrying a black shirt in his hands.

“No,” Jensen said catching the shirt mid-air when Jared tossed it at him. “Not at all.”

 

 

“I’ll test you on what we’ve covered so far,” Jared explained as he handed Jensen a cold beer from the cooler and came to a wide stance before him. 

“I’ll point at various parts of the machine and you’re gonna tell me what they’re called and what they’re used for. Got it?”

Jensen nodded.

“Alright,” Jared slowly dragged his gaze along the dismantled bike in front of them until his eyes suddenly latched onto a thin metal pipe with a spring at the rear end. 

Jared opened his mouth, twinkle of mischief in his eyes because he thought he had picked a hard one, but Jensen never gave him a chance to voice his question. 

“That's a hydraulic shock absorber, designed to absorb shock impulses. It converts kinetic energy of the impacting force into another form of energy, which is then dissipated.”

Jensen grinned when Jared’s jaw dropped a little in surprise. “How did you…?”

“Know what you were going to ask?” Jensen chuckled a little. “Well you’re quite transparent for one thing and earlier you wouldn’t shut up about the shock absorbers' ‘effect of traveling over rough ground and enhancing ride quality. earlier.”

Jared looked mildly impressed. “You really weren’t lying when you mentioned the whole photographic memory thing, huh?”

He ran his calloused hands over the dirty metal almost sensually, like he was touching a body, hot and writhing under the gentle persistence of his fingers.

“Alright. Let’s take another one,” He patted a metal plate that was wrapped around the front wheel of an 87 Honda Shadow with mild affection. “Tell me what this is.”

“Brake caliper,” Jensen didn’t take his eyes off Jared when he answered.

Jared had explained everything to him in meticulous detail over the past few hours.

He was good with words when it came to bikes.

It was easy to hear the passion in his tone, the experience that came from years on the road and Jensen had found it surprisingly easy to follow him. He got high on just being around Jared, on watching the effortless ease with which he handled his job, taking cars and bikes apart and reassembling them like it was nothing.  
  
“Right,” Jared's eyes crinkled with mirth. Bastard seemed to be enjoying himself. “It's a brake caliper. What does it do?”

Jensen bit his bottom lip, gaze flickering down to Jared’s tattooed chest, the curved outline of feathers and flames that spread out across his torso.

He was eerily aware of how close they were standing together, the smell of Jared’s cologne was clouding his airways, making it hard for him to concentrate.

It smelled like pine cones and something else that was entirely Jared- musky and strong.

“Not sure… I might have forgotten,” Jensen teased, tilting his head to the side.

They had been in a playful mood all day, throwing jibes back and forth between them.

It wasn’t quite flirting, but it sure as hell wasn’t harmless either.

Jared took another step forward, taking his hand off the bike to cup Jensen’s jaw, his grip just tight enough to emit control.

It made Jensen’s heartbeat kick up in desire, heat pooling low in his stomach.

“You’re fucking with me.”

Jensen peered up at Jared with a daring twinkle in his eyes. “Maybe you just need to refresh my memory.”

Jared held up his hands, feigning innocence. "What would your boyfriend say?”

Memories of Matt instantly resurfaced to Jensen's mind.

_‘Offering yerself up to them like a w-whore?’_

The words were ringing through his ears, mind spinning with the image of Matt throwing him up against the doorframe, knocking the air from his lungs.

“Hey, y'alright?” Jared frowned when Jensen pulled away from his touch, suddenly pale and distraught, where he’d been relaxed enough to tease and flirt seconds ago. 

“Fine,” Jensen shook his head, not wanting Jared to find out about what happened.

He had only known the guy for a little while, but something told him that Jared wouldn’t be too happy to know that Matt had called him a slut and punched a hole in the wall right next to his face.

“Look, I shouldn’t have mentioned your boyfriend, that was fucking uncalled for and—“

“I said it’s fine,” Jensen quickly cut him off, gaze dropping to the floor. “Brake calipers are essential for the braking system. They squeeze the brake pads against the surface of the brake rotor to stop the bike or slow it down.”

Jared just stared at him, throat working. He took a step back, crossed his arms in front of his chest and nodded, jaw set into a grim line. His voice was dangerously low when he finally found it again. “Something happen between you and that guy?”

Jensen swallowed, not looking up. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jared wasn't buying it. “Don’t fuck around with me. I can see that something’s bothering you, so what the hell did he do? He fucking touch you or something?”

He probably thought Matt had lost his shit because Jensen had _told_ him about the kiss. 

“We’ve been seeing each other for a while now, so touching isn’t entirely ruled out, you know?” Jensen locked his jaw in stubborn defiance. 

He wasn’t sure what he was trying to achieve, but seeing the glint of possessive fury in Jared’s fiery gaze, seeing the way his throat worked and his nostrils flared at the mention of Matt touching him, was worth it.

“Oh yeah? Can’t imagine he was too keen to hear about you making out with some other guy behind his back.” 

“Woah, what?” Jensen huffed out an incredulous laugh. “You were the one kissing _me_!”

“And you sure as hell didn’t seem to mind.”

“I was in shock,” Jensen bit out, taking a step back when Jared moved closer, crowding into his personal space. “I didn’t expect it and I was acting on impulse.”

“Nah,” Jared shook his head, eyes glinting predatorily. “Deny it all you want, but you were giving back as fucking good as you got.”

Jensen dry-swallowed, gaze inevitably drawn to Jared’s lips when he talked, their bodies mere inches apart. _When had Jared gotten so close?_

“That's not true,” Jensen gave back weakly, not sure who he was trying to convince. “Told you I only acted on impul—“

The rest of his words were smothered as Jared clashed their mouths together, sinking his teeth into Jensen’s bottom lip in what could only be explained as a show of possessiveness, a lingering claim on what he perceived to be  _his._

Jensen moaned and parted his lips to the hungry sweep of Jared’s tongue, completely surrendering to Jared and letting him take whatever he wanted. He knew it was wrong, knew it was irrational and selfish and fucking dumb.

But how could anything be wrong when it felt so fucking right?

Lips disconnecting for a second, Jared chuckled low against Jensen’s mouth, wrapping his muscled, sweaty arms around Jensen and pressing their chests and hips together. The garage was stuffy, summer heat beating down on them relentlessly and the bitter smell of gasoline mixed with the pleasant scent of Jared’s sweat.

Jared used his strength to swing Jensen around and slammed him up against the back of a nearby work bench and Jensen hissed when his back made a harsh impact with the metal frame. He tucked his thigh between Jared’s legs on sheer instinct, arms slipping around the taller man’s neck as Jared leaned in to suck the tang of sweat and grime from beneath Jensen’s collarbone.

“ _Fuck_ , Jay,” Jensen tossed his head back to grant Jared more access, baring his neck as he was overtaken by lust.

The submissive gesture seemed to flick a switch in the taller man’s mind cause the next moment, Jensen found himself being lifted completely off the ground.

Jared manhandled him onto the cool leather seat of the dismantled bike they’d been working on and Jensen wrapped his legs tighter around Jared's firm body, holding him in place. He grabbed Jensen’s face, strong fingers digging painfully into his jaw as he dragged their mouths back together and kissed the breath right out of Jensen.

He could feel the heat from Jared’s arousal radiating through the fabric of their jeans and it sent a thrill through his bones.

It was strangely empowering to know that Jared wanted him, that he had somehow managed to turn this guy on, who could have had just about  _anyone_  he fucking wanted.

There was a heavy hand in his hair, strong fingers fisting his golden spikes and Jensen should have been thinking about the shooting and the gun trafficking and fucking  _Matthew_ , but all he could think about was  _more._

“Goddamnit, you’re so fucking hot,” Jared growled out as he continued to lick and bite his way into Jensen’s mouth, tongues tangling and kiss-swollen lips curling up into matching grins. Jared pinned Jensen in place against the hot plastic seat of the bike and without warning, reached between his legs to cup Jensen’s throbbing dick through his loose jeans and boxer briefs.

Jensen let out a choking gasp as Jared gave a testy squeeze and curled his fingers tighter around his shaft. "You hard for me, Jen? Been thinking about me fucking you? Been thinking about me against you- _inside_ you? Cause I have. Been imagining those fuckable lips and what they’d look like stretched around my dick- about the desperate little sounds you’d make when I touched you.”

The words sent a rush of heat through Jensen, wound him up and made him moan.

He was beyond the point of forming coherent words, the mixed sensations overwhelming, setting his blood on fire. The hard press of Jared’s callous fingers against his dick had Jensen arching off the seat of the bike and stifling a groan against Jared’s neck.

His fingers slipped on Jared’s tattooed skin when he reached around to grab his ass and pull him closer.

And of course- of fucking course- because the whole universe apparently hated him, that was the exact moment when the door to the auto shop creaked open, revealing Katie in obscene leather tights and with a smug grin on her lips.

“Shit,” Jensen sucked in a panicked breath, burying his reddening face against the sweaty nape of Jared’s neck.

He couldn’t believe they’d just been walked in on.

Maybe if he didn’t move he could effectively hide his smaller frame behind Jared’s broad shoulders and pretend none of this ever happened.

_Yeah, no such luck._

“Hola, boys, how’s the tutoring coming? Making any progress?”

Jensen groaned in utter embarrassment, wishing for a hole to open up beneath him and swallow him.

Jared grit his teeth, eyes squeezed shut in frustration as his mouth stilled against the younger man’s neck. “Katie, get the fuck outta here. Can't you see we're fucking busy?”

“Oh, I can see that you’re busy, alright,” Katie chuckled, running appraising eyes over their tangled bodies.

“Never thought I’d say this, but how about you both tuck your dicks back in and come join us outside? Chris is tossing some steaks on the grill. Thought you might be hungry after hours of _studying_.”

She winked over at Jensen before strutting out the door, leaving a weird tension behind that had them both squirming awkwardly in the wake of what had happened.

“I-I should probably uh…” Jensen was the first to withdraw, jumping off the bike and hurriedly grabbing the clothes he had taken off earlier from the ground.

“Hey,” Jared hauled him back up, cupping Jensen’s jaw with his ginormous hand and tracing the fading line of bite marks he had left there not too long ago. “You’re not freaking out, right?”

“What- no, I’m not, I mean why would I be freaking out, right? Nothing happened,” Jensen blurted out, squirming back into his jeans and fumbling with the buttons. His eyes were flickering around the room, looking anywhere but at Jared.

“Jensen,” Jared held him for another second, before slowly releasing his arm, eyes downcast and sweaty bangs falling into his eyes. “This doesn’t change anything between us, right?”

Doesn’t change _what,_ exactly?

Their non-existent, unspoken, tangled-up, not-meant-to-be, irrational attraction to each other? Or the fact that they’d just gone from harmless joking, to fighting, to dry humping each other against a fucking motorcycle in less than ten minutes?

Was Jared afraid Jensen would stop working on the drafts for the project if shit went down between them? Or was he concerned that Jensen would run off to tell the cops about the shooting if things between them got too complicated?

Jensen swallowed, mind spinning.

“Of course not,” he said, fingers shaking as he wrapped them around the doorknob. “Nothing’s changed.”

"Alright," Jared walked over, settling one hand over Jensen's hip and prying his finger's off the doorknob with the other. "Then stay for dinner."

 

 

Jared had fucked up. He _knew_ that.

He shouldn’t have kissed Jensen in the middle of the fucking hospital, sure as hell shouldn’t have jumped the guy’s bones in the auto shop for everyone to see.

At the rate they were going, he would probably be sucking the kid off at the end of the day and now _that_ would be the fucking biggest mistake of them all. 

Because Jensen was just a freaking college student, pure and innocent and with a bright fucking future ahead of him and the further Jared dragged him into all of this, the harder it would become for them to go their separate ways when their time had come.

It was just hard to remember all of that when Jensen was throwing his head back in laughter, face glowing in the orange shine of the campfire at some throwaway comment Chris had made. The cords of his neck were standing out beneath the pale, freckled skin and Jared could feel a deep, primal satisfaction at the purple hickey marking the impeccable flesh there.

“You know what's funny?” Chase commented drily, licking his bottom lip as he followed Jared’s gaze over at where Jensen was nursing the mouth of his beer bottle. “I remember you shooting me that same fucking look not too long ago:”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Chase,” Jared took a drag of the joint that was being passed around and washed the acidic smoke down with a swig of beer.

Chase laughed a little, leaning over the table to snag the joint from Jared’s fingers. “It’s true you know… only difference between me and him is that I fucking knew what I was in for. But Jensen? You’re gonna break his fucking heart and you know it.”

Jared’s eyes flickered away and before he could say anything in return, Steve started playing the first chords of what sounded suspiciously like Neil Young’s _Heart of Gold_ on his acoustic guitar and Chris chimed in with his rusty harmonica.

Jensen’s cheeks were flushed from the beer and whiskey he’d been drinking, white shirt unbuttoned at the top and hair still finger-mussed from where Jared had tugged at it earlier.

He was a little tipsy but never, in a million thousand years would he have expected what came next.

_“I wanna live, I wanna give, I've been a miner for a heart of gold. It's these expressions I never give, that keep me searching for a heart of gold. And I'm getting old. Keep me searching for a heart of gold. And I'm getting old…”_

Jensen’s voice echoed through the junkyard, clear as day and smooth like butter, hitting every fucking note right on the head like he wasn't even trying.

Jared wasn’t quick to call anything beautiful, but _this_ was. 

Katie cheered, squealing excitedly at the sound of Jensen’s voice, while Chris played a solo on his harmonica and Steve grinned from ear to ear, hitting the chords with a little more enthusiasm.

Jared let out a mouthful of smoke, feeling just the right side of lightheaded- letting the combined effect of the weed and alcohol wash through him like a cleansing tide, dragging him under.

He didn’t know what the hell was going on- how Jensen had weaseled his way into their gang so fucking effortlessly or why he was losing control every fucking time the kid was around, but if there was one thing he was damn certain of, was that this was way above anything that had ever gone down between him and Chase or anyone else for that matter.

 _No_ , Jared thought as he listened to Jensen’s voice, swells of emotion rising up in his own throat. No, Chase wasn’t even in the same fucking _league_  as Jensen.

That boy was a class entirely of his own.

 

 

“Jensen wake the fuck up, man, c’mon!” Jensen grunted when a heavy pillow hit him square in the face. He grumbled something intelligible and buried his head beneath the blanket in an effort to go back to sleep, but his tormentor was persistent.

“Dude, get your goddamn’ ass out of bed, _now,_ I’m not gonna say it again."

Tom was yanking the warm blanket from his curled up body and exposed him to the cool morning breeze that drifted in from a cranked window.

Jensen opened a blood-shot eye to a world that was entirely too fucking bright and then whined when white pain erupted behind his eyes, head pounding with the mother of all hangovers.

“Tommy?” he slurred out, grimacing at the stale taste of smoke and beer on his tongue. He took a fleeting glance around the room before squeezing his eyes back shut on another groan. “The fuck are ye’ doin? Lemme go back to sleep.”

He wasn’t entirely sure how he had gotten back to the campus, a huge chunk of last night just _gone,_  missing from his memories, but right now it didn’t matter. All that mattered was sleep, and in particular his fucking _lack_ thereof.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Tom snapped, looking twenty shades of pissed, lips pressed together and face gaunt with worry. “You stumbled back home at three-thirty last night, falling over every single piece of furniture we possess on your way to the bed and nearly knocking over the TV in the process.”

Jensen grunted, throwing a hand over his face. “Buy ye a new one…” 

“Screw the stupid TV, Jensen! What the hell were you thinking? Do you even remember what day it is?”

Jensen was pretty sure it was Wednesday or Thursday, _anyway_ , he failed to see how that was important enough to keep him from going back to sleep.

“It’s October twenty-first. You were supposed to write your anatomy exam today, the one you’ve been studying for, remember that?”

Jensen’s eyes flew wide open. “Fuck!”

He was up in a flash, heart jumping into his throat as he fumbled with the alarm clock in a desperate attempt to read the time.

It was twelve-thirty. Goddamnit, the exam had started at ten.

Tom snorted, chucking the blanket down at Jensen. “I called your lecturer, told him you were too sick to come. He was nice enough to cancel your registration. You can redo it in January, won’t lose your attempt.”

Jensen squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his temples in frustration.

“Yeah you can thank yourself for three lost months. Not like I didn’t mean to wake you up. I think I’ve never heard you curse so much before. You even called me, and I quote, 'a blue _donkey’s arse’,_ which is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Shit, Tom, I’m sorry,“ Jensen swallowed, feeling like he might be sick.

Tom just let out a long-suffering sigh and sat down on the edge of Jensen’s mattress, washing a hand over his face.

“I know I probably got no right to ask this of you, but man—  _please,_ whatever this is about, promise me not to slack at school because of it?”

Jensen couldn’t help it, a small chuckle escaped his lips before he could stop himself. “Sure, mom.”

“I’m serious,” Tom shot him a glare. “You’ve got something good going for yourself and I don’t want you to risk your whole future on a whim. Or your freaking _life_ , for that matter.”

Jensen’s face grew sour, smile falling from his lips. “Jesus, Tom, don’t make a bigger deal out of this than it is, okay? I’m not gonna drop out of school because I missed one fucking exam.”

“Yeah, alright, whatever you say,” Tom looked away, got up from the bed and turned towards the door, before shooting one last glance back over his shoulder. “Danneel stopped by earlier, asking for you. You promised to go help her pick out a dress for the party tonight, remember?”

Jensen flopped back against the pillows, exhausted.

He so wasn't ready for the day to start.

 

 

Jared glanced at his phone for what must have been the thousandth time that day, growing more anxious by the second.

“Waiting for a call from your boy?” Steve shot him a knowing smile, shaking his head and whistling low under his breath. “Gotta say, he sure is one talented fucker.”

Of course, Steve would be impressed by Jensen’s singing. After all, the fastest way to the guy’s heart has always been music.

Jared didn’t even bother flipping his friend off for the jibe. Jensen had, for obvious reasons, quickly become the new favorite thing to tease Jared with.

“He’s not answering his phone,” Jared tried to go for casual and then cringed when his worry still somehow managed to bleed into his voice.  “Just wanna make sure he’s gotten home alright.”

“Jay, you fucking _drove_ him home, dropped him off on the fucking doorstep and all, what do you think, that he fell and cracked his skull open on the edge of a table?”

Steve meant it as a mindless joke, but Jared tensed at the words, tightening his dirty fingers on the wrench he was holding. “Don’t joke about shit like that.”

Steve froze, giving him a long, hard look. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“What?” Jared frowned, already pissed.

“You’re falling for the kid, aren’t you?”

Jared snorted, turned back towards his two-stroke engine with an angry roll of his neck. “Shut up.” 

He wasn’t _falling_ for anyone. It wasn’t his style. He didn’t need that kind of drama in his life.

“Oh, sweet merciful mother, I never thought I’d see the day,” Steve let out an incredulous laugh and shook his head a little. Then the smile slowly faded from his face and his flashing blue eyes turned serious. 

“You know it’s never gonna work out, right?” his voice was soft, a little gruffer than usually, a little more careful, like he had actually thought about the words, before saying them. 

Jared propped his muscular arms up on the frame of the Pontiac’s trunk and hung his head, shoulders tense. “There’s nothing going on between us that could or could not work out, alright? He’s working on the Lightning and that’s about fucking it.”

“Yeah, right. Keep telling yourself that,” Steve snorted. “You think I didn’t see the fucking way you looked at him?”

Jared dropped the wrench with a clatter, straightening up to his full height. “Let it _go_ , man.”

“Fine,” Steve spat a glob of saliva to the ground, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Just don't go and do anything fucking stupid, alright? Kid deserves better."

Jared waited until he was out of sight before he sagged against the Pontiac, letting out a long, hard breath.

_Fucking hell._

 

 

“So he wants you to do some design work for them?” Danneel’s eyes widened in excitement and Jensen shushed her, not wanting to have the attention of the whole fucking store on them.

“Yeah, now quit asking, alright. I thought we were gonna pick a dress for you?” They were sitting in a Starbucks, Jensen with his freaking sunglasses on, like some freaking douche, because his eyes were too sensitive to the bright neon light filtering in from the mall.

Danneel took a sip of her Caramel Frappuccino before flashing him a wicked grin and lifting a pink shopping bag onto the table. “All done, sugar. You didn’t honestly think I was going to wait until the last second to shop for a dress, did you? All I had to do was pick it up before you got here. Mish helped me find one like a month ago…”

“Wait, you had this the whole time? What the hell did you order me here for, then?” Jensen groaned miserably into his own cup of espresso.  “Did I fail to mention the mother of all freaking hangovers that’s threatening to split my head apart?”

“Don’t be silly, Jen,” Danneel playfully punched his arm. “You’re here to tell me all about last night, of course. I need to know all the dirty little details.”

“Danni…” Jensen protested, letting out a long-suffering exhale. “I can’t even remember the majority of what happened last night, okay?”

“Did you sleep with him?” she blurted out, completely ignoring his half-hearted protest.

“I think that’s something I would most definitely remember.”

“So he just kissed you and then this chick walked in on you? What’s her name again?”

“Katie,” Jensen rubbed a hand over his forehead, snorting softly. “She was so fucking smug when she caught us. I think you’d like her. She’s dorky, but in a lovable way.”

Danneel tossed her straw at him, watching it bounce off his forehead with a satisfied grin. “Who are you calling dorky, Mr. Valedictorian? At least I don’t know how to say the alphabet backward in _ancient Greek_.”

“Hey, you never know when that could come in handy,” Jensen laughed, swatting the straw off his face and then freezing when he caught movement from the corner of his eyes.

“Jensen,” a familiar voice had him look up to face Matthew Cohen and Jensen felt like someone had punched him in the lungs. 

_How does he always know where to find me?_

“Misha told me you'd be here,” Jensen barely suppressed a groan, mentally going through a list of things he was going to do to Misha once they were back at the campus.

Danneel glanced from Matt to Jensen and then back at Matt, visibly uncomfortable. “Uh, I think I’m gonna go powder my nose,” she hurriedly excused herself and then gave Jensen an awkward little shrug before disappearing around the corner.

Jensen sighed, taking off his sunglasses. “Look, Matt...“

“Please don’t say anything until you’ve heard me out, okay? I know I don’t deserve it after what I did to you, but god, Jensen, I’m so so sorry for how I behaved- for what I said to you.”

Jensen opened his mouth, but Matt held up a hand, silencing him. “I had no right to treat you like that and there’s no excuse for the way I acted, but you should know that it’s never going to happen again,  _ever_.”

Jensen felt his insides recoil from the words. He was already shaking his head before words had fully formed in his mind. “Matt, listen, I really don’t think—“

“No, wait, _please_ ,” Matt’s voice turned pleading, eyes huge and brimming with emotion. His face was pale, cheeks sunken in like he hadn’t been eating for a week. He looked wrecked and guilt-riddled to an unhealthy degree and Jensen’s throat tightened at the sight.

“I wasn’t totally honest with you, Jensen, I—“ he swallowed, struggling hard to get the words out. “God, I never thought I would be telling you this in a _Starbucks_ , but uh...my dad… my dad was an alcoholic _._ He uh… he used to beat me up when I was a kid and well, I guess somewhere down the road I just decided I wasn’t ever going to touch a drop of liquor in my life. I just didn't wanna end up like him. Now look where that got me. ”

Jensen’s gaze dropped down to the tabletop. 

He had already expected as much 

“I’m sorry,” he was still pissed at Matt, but his words were sincere. 

His own parents weren’t going to get any awards on parenting anytime soon, but at least they had never knocked him around. “So why _did_ you get drunk the other night?”

Jensen felt a dark sense of foreboding at the question, but he needed to know.

Matt gritted his teeth, blinking rapidly. Fuck, he was barely holding it together. How could Jensen not have noticed that the guy had so much emotional baggage?

“I like you, Jensen. I like you a lot.”

And here they were, the words he’d been running away from ever since he had met Matthew at that party. The words he didn’t know how to respond to, because _‘Sorry, but I don’t feel the same way’_ seemed fucking inappropriate after having spent nearly two months together, kissing and messing around and generally behaving like a freaking couple.

Luckily, Matt carried on without giving him a chance to reply. “I haven’t felt this way about anyone in a long time, but lately you’ve been withdrawing. Suddenly you were spending all your spare time with this Jared and I just… I guess I lost control for a moment, numbed my jealousy with alcohol. And I can’t tell you what a huge mistake that was… Jen, god, I’ve spent the past week _hating_ myself for what happened.”

Jensen nodded tersely, fingers toying nervously with the espresso cup in front of him. When the silence dragged on he looked up to meet Matt’s bright blue eyes. “A tendency to alcoholism and outbursts of violence can be genetically inherited, Matt. Maybe you should undergo some sort of therapy. I could spread out my feelers for you, ask around at the hospital if you want."

“Yeah,” Matt laughed a little, nodding his head jerkily as if Jensen had just granted him a blanket apology instead of a well-meant advice. “I could do that, I mean I probably should. You’re right.”

For a second he looked so fucking relieved and hopeful that Jensen’s insides clenched with guilt at the heartbreak he was going to put him through.

“I’m willing to forget about what happened, but I still think it would be better if we didn’t see each other for a while.”

Matt’s face fell, realization dawning on him. “No, Jensen, hold on for a second—“

“This has nothing to do with Jared or with what happened the other night,” Jensen clarified, looking down at his hands. “I just don’t think we're working out, Matt.”

“No, Jensen,  _please_ don’t do this,” Matt’s voice was cracking and Jensen’s heart clenched painfully at the sound of it.

He should have done this much sooner, should have told Matt that he wasn’t returning his feelings.

“I’m sorry,” Jensen shook his head, shrugging his shoulder in a gesture of helplessness. "I just don't feel that way about you, Matt."

And not for a lack of trying, either. God knew, Jensen had tried to fall in love with the guy, but his heart didn’t seem to work on command.

Matt opened his mouth but then he thought better of it,  snapping his jaw shut and stumbling  back, practically falling over another customer in his haste to get out of the coffee shop.

Jensen watched him go with a slight grimace on his face, feeling like a grade-A asshole.

He didn’t know how much time passed until Danneel's hesitant footsteps neared their table. Her hand gently touched his shoulder, squeezing his tense muscles in reassurance. "Thought he was never gonna leave."

Jensen was willing to bet she had watched the whole scene.

“You did the right thing, you know,” she said softly, empathetically, like Jensen hadn’t just broken someone’s heart.

Jensen said nothing in return. 

 

   
Jared was lying in bed, staring at a wilted photograph of his mom when his phone rang, ripping him out of a wayward memory.

“Yeah?” he answered it on the second ring, not bothering to check for a name.

“Can you come get me?” Jared’s heart jumped into his throat at the sound of Jensen’s voice. “Where are you? You alright?”

“I'm alright,” Jensen wasn’t even trying to sell the lie. “I just… uh... I ended things with Matt earlier today.”

“Oh,” Jared couldn’t really help the twinge of relief that sparked in his chest, even when it was totally uncalled for.

“That sucks,” he cleared his voice, trying to convey as much empathy as he could muster. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Jensen sniffed and then paused, drawing in air like he was out somewhere smoking. "No. I don't know."

Jared hung his head, pressing his lips together. “This isn’t because of—“

“It’s not,” Jensen cut him off, not a trace of doubt in his voice and that soothed Jared. He hadn’t meant to stir up that kind of trouble. “Listen, I know it's late, but would you mind... could you maybe take me for a spin? I need to clear my head.”

Jared was out the door before he even fucking realized it. “I’m on my way.”

If there was one fucking thing in the world he could relate to, it was needing to ride so fucking fast that the wind drove every unwanted thought from your mind, replacing it with a feeling of invincibility.

 

 

Jared made the twenty minutes ride to Danneel's apartment in less than ten. Jensen swung himself onto the backseat, just sitting there for a moment and listening to the purr of the engine before he snaked his arms around Jared's strong chest.

Jared headed for a mountain road, disregarding all speed limits and opening the throttle wide.

Jensen fisted his fingers into the worn leather of Jared’s jacket, allowing the comforting scent of pine and motor oil to wash through him as they took the bends and curves at 120 miles per hour without batting an eyelash.

Their bodies were in tune with the machine, knees nearly skimming the tarmac as Jared raced them up the hill, trees and houses blurring into a single mass of shapes and colors around them.

It wasn’t until Jared cut the engine, leaning back into Jensen’s chest that he finally dared to open his eyes again, realizing that they had stopped at a small parking lot amidst the cove-lined road. It was some sort of plateau and from up here the rooftops of South Boston looked like nothing more than gray rectangles, spreading out into every possible direction beneath them.

The city was ablaze with a thousand lights, twinkling in the night like stars among the swirling smog, the dirty streets that were never vacant and the unfriendly sky with its obscure clouds.

Up here, Jensen felt like he could breathe again, leaving the whole stress and confusion of the past few weeks behind and focusing on the beat of his own heart, pulsating in sync with Jared’s.

It wasn’t until much later, with both of them shivering in the cool autumn air, that Jensen realized they hadn’t said a single word to each other in nearly two hours.

Jared grabbed Jensen’s hand and interlaced their icy fingers before stuffing them into his pockets, an unspoken intimacy between them that neither of them could deny.

"Better?" Jared asked, brushing his fingers over Jensen's knuckles inside the pocket of his jacket.

"Yeah," Jensen nestled his chin against the curve of Jared's neck and sighed. "Better." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everone! Hope you enjoyed the new update! I have created a community for this fic on LJ in case anyone's interested. Here's the link to it: http://onthe-fastlane.livejournal.com/   
> I'm planning to use the comm for picspams, timestamps, meta-fics and generally everything related to the OR-universe. Please feel free to join and become a member! <3 Reviews are love!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning* this chapter contains mentions of abortion and graphic sexual content.

** **

** **

**Open Road**  
**Chapter 10**

  
You see, the problem with trouble was that it started out as fun.

Jared had learned that the hard way.

He had learned it drunk-driving his ass into a store window and cutting his left arm open on hunks of broken glass. 

He’d learned it getting kicked out of school for fucking some guy in the janitor’s closet.

And now he was learning it all over again, in the form of this hotter than hell, wicked smart, walking and talking epitome of perfection that was Jensen.

The guy was currently straddling a 1939 neon blue Triumph Tiger in nothing but ripped jeans and a stained shirt, muscles rippling beneath the sun-kissed skin as he squirmed nervously on the leather seat.

It was a classic British motorcycle with a rigid frame and girder forks, one of the nicest models Jared had ever put together (if he said so himself) but even a beauty like this, paled in comparison to the man who was sitting on it.

“You’re aware I don’t actually know how to ride this thing.”

“I’m aware,” Jared ran unashamed eyes over the smooth curve of Jensen’s spine, gaze lingering just above the belt line of his jeans where the jut of his hip bone stuck out beneath the smooth flesh. 

He was lean and damn toned, not exactly muscle-packed, but not skinny either. _Perfect._

“I mean I could try, but you’d be the one to scrape me off the tarmac when things go south.”

“Relax, this is just dry practice,” Jared sat down behind Jensen and pressed his muscular chest against the younger man’s back.

He chuckled when he felt Jensen go rigid against him, spine straightening and shoulders tensing with unease.“You need to loosen up.”

“Sorry, it’s just,” Jensen was squirming again, trying to ease himself off the bike, but Jared quickly bracketed his arms with his own, holding him in place. “I’ve never done this before.“

“I know. That’s what I’m here for. Now relax,” he repeated, placing his palms over Jensen’s fingers around the throttle of the bike. “Loosen your grip. You’re not supposed to strangle it. Your bike’s like an extension of yourself. It’s your companion, not your enemy.”

“Wow,” Jensen huffed out a breath. “Who knew you could be so poetic?”

“Think you’re being funny, huh?” Jared rocked his hips forward hard and Jensen sucked in a tiny breath of surprise, fingers tightening even further around the bike’s throttle.

Then Jared leaned in close, feeling Jensen’s frantic heartbeat reverberating through his spine as he pressed his lips against the man’s ear. “Loosen. Your. Hold.”

Jensen slowly unfurled his fingers- one by one- like it took herculean effort to do so.

His breathing was heavy, skin radiating heat like he was sporting a fever.

“Good,” Jared praised, loving to feel every sliver of emotion through the tight press of Jensen’s back against his own chest. “Now ease forward until you’ve found a comfortable position. On a standard bike, you should be able to stand straight on the pegs and balance yourself, but this is a cruiser, which means…?”

“Foot pedals are in the front,” Jensen finished a little shakily and Jared nodded, kicking his own unlaced leather boots up on the pegs next to Jensen’s. “On a bike like this, you need to sit with your knees slightly bent so you can turn, brake and accelerate easily.”

Jared flexed his arms a little, lifting Jensen’s up in the process.

“Typical rookie mistake. You’re holding the handlebars at a downward angle but you can’t steer a machine when you’re putting weight on it. Not to mention that your wrists would fucking kill you if you tried.”

Jared slowly trailed the tip of his fingers up Jensen’s elbows before lowering them to the handlebars. “Forearms parallel to the ground, elbows bent slightly upward.”

“Like this?” Jensen sent a nervous glance at Jared over his shoulder.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Jared praised, amused by how eager Jensen was to please him. 

Kid really was a teacher’s pet, but damn if he wasn’t the hottest one Jared had ever seen.

He cleared his throat and somewhat reluctantly swung himself off the back of the bike. “Alright, your turn. Show me what you got.”

Jensen turned towards him with a panicked expression. “What, you mean like all by myself?”

“Just like I taught you. petcock valve first, then pull out the choke and turn the keys.”

“How can you say things like ‘petcock valve’ and keep a straight face?” Jensen shook his head, laughing a little and Jared couldn’t help but think how beautiful he was with that gleeful twinkle in his eyes, pouty lips practically splitting his face in half.

He just crossed his arms, though, not rising up to the bait because Jensen was here to learn something and Jared took this shit seriously.

“You’re no fun, you know that?” Jensen grumbled before reaching for the keys.

“It’s in reverse,” Jared pointed at the clutch, watching Jensen blush at the amateur mistake.

“I knew that,” Jensen mumbled and quickly flicked it into neutral.

“Sure you did,” Jared smiled to himself.

Jensen turned the key with a flick of his wrist while squeezing the clutch all the way to the grip.

He pressed the start button with his right thumb, just like Jared had shown him earlier.

The motorcycle roared to life, the whole machine vibrating and growling in a deafening cacophony of noise.

“Is it supposed to be this loud?” Jensen yelled over the engine’s rattle.

“Damn right it is,” Jared growled before swinging himself back onto the seat, this time in front of Jensen and kicking back the side stand.

He stepped on the gas and switched into first gear, making Jensen gasp in surprise when the bike started forward. “What are you—“

“What do you say we break this beauty in, get some dinner while we’re at it?”

 

  
Jared took him to a casual steakhouse a few blocks down the road and Jensen ordered what turned out to be the best goddamn rib eye steak he had ever eaten outside of Texas, which earned Jared major plus points in Jensen’s book.

“Gotta say,” Jared took a sip of his beer. “Glad to see you can appreciate a good slab of meat. I was half afraid you were one of these peace-loving vegans or something.”

“Nah, I’m a meat lover,” Jensen shrugged. There was probably a lot of good stuff to say about his lifestyle, but a healthy diet wasn’t one of them. Sometimes he lived on nothing but cold pizza and coffee for days. “Just don’t have it in me, man. Grew up in Texas, remember?”

“Where exactly are you from, anyway?” Jared leaned forward in his chair, eyeing Jensen with interest as he took another sip of his beer. “I don’t think you ever told me.”

While this was usually the point where Jensen clammed up and abruptly lead the conversation into a different direction (talking about the past stirred up too many unwelcome memories), he found himself oddly unbothered by Jared’s question.

There was just something very respectful and calm about the way Jared asked him things. He always seemed to pick up on Jensen’s mood, never one to push for info when it wasn’t given willingly, so Jensen found it surprisingly easy to open up to him.

“Uh, Richardson, just outside of Dallas. What about yourself?”

That got the ball rolling.

Jared talked about growing up in Austin with his mom and about how they both moved to South Boston when he was still little.

He also revealed that Jeff wasn’t his real father- not in blood, anyway. but that the older man had taken him under his wing after his mother died.

“They were good together, you know? He was the first guy who treated her right. After she died…“ Jared paused, fumbling with the label of the beer bottle. “We were both broken in our own ways. I didn’t exactly make it easy for him, but he was there for me, ye know? Always set me straight, got me out of trouble too many times to count.”

Jensen was quietly nursing his beer. He couldn’t say he was surprised to hear that Jeff wasn’t Jared’s biological father.

He had noticed the signs quite a while ago, like the fact that they didn’t refer to each other as ‘dad’ or ‘son’ and that for all their inner similarities, they didn’t actually look anything alike.

But he wasn’t foolish enough to take Jared’s confession lightly.

They had known each other for a little over a month now and in all this time, their conversation hadn’t ever really gone beyond the realm of the gang life or motorcycles.

So to hear Jared talk this freely about something so personal, something that bordered dangerously close on _emotional_  was filling Jensen with an odd sense of pride and comfort.

It probably shouldn’t feel like progress, but somehow it did.

Whatever this whole thing was, dinner, drinking, laughing and talking like they’d never talked before, Jensen felt like they had just crossed some sort of line and taken their- well, whatever connection they seemed to share, to the next level.

The conversation between them flowed almost too easily, ranging from long-forgotten childhood memories to religious beliefs and pretty much everything in between.

Jensen was surprised to find that Jared was extremely knowledgeable in all things related to geography, history, and politics.

He probably wouldn’t be caught dead admitting it, but he was also a geek in all things book-related. Jensen nearly choked on his beer when Jared casually mentioned that he was a huge fan of classic literature, having devoured pretty much all of the novels from George Orwell to Stephen King and Oscar Wilde. He had even read the _Bible_.

“You’re shitting me,” Jensen snorted into his beer glass, looking skeptical because who had the time and nerves to sit through the entire thing (?!) but Jared only shrugged.

“Figured you can’t really judge something without knowing anything about it,” he said, laughing a little and Jensen felt his appreciation for the other man grow even further.

It was kind of inspiring to hear Jared talk about religion, about the fact that he grew up in a conservative Christian home, much like Jensen himself and still managed to come to his own acceptance of god. One that respected other people's’ beliefs, even when he didn’t agree with them.

Jensen told Jared about his high school years and sneaking out of soccer practice to join the local art studio for drawing classes. Then he continued on about his passion for sports- all above lacrosse and how he had really sucked when he first started until he had somehow magically gotten the hang of it overnight.

“Sure it wasn’t just because one of the balls hit you in the head?” Jared teased and Jensen flipped him off playfully before draining the rest of his drink in one go.

“So you’re telling me you’ve never listened to Five Finger Death Punch? What about Monster Truck? Hammerfall?”

Jensen shook his head. “Not really into the whole Metal genre. I’m more of an old-school rocker myself. Everything from AC/DC to Zeppelin works as long as you throw a few country songs in for variety.”

Jared’s face scrunched up in disgust. 

“I knew it,” he groaned, running a hand over his face like Jensen had just admitted murder or something equally as horrible. “Knew there had to be a huge catch with someone as fucking hot as you.”

“Hey, what’s wrong with Country?” Jensen asked in mock indignation and Jared shook his head, dimples on full display.

“What’s right with it?” Jared mocked and they both cracked up.

It didn’t take long for Jensen to realize that pretty much everything Jared did or said or didn’t say drove him crazy, every insignificant little detail of his life he offered up to Jensen only further ignited the raging flames of desire in his chest.

It was like the guy had a thousand different layers and each time Jensen discovered a new side of him, it only made him fall a little harder, made his heart squeeze tighter in his chest- like invisible fingers clamping down on it.

And as if that wasn’t already enough, the fact that Jensen had to watch Jared devour a steak and wrap those kissable lips his goddamn fork time and time again, while the spread of black feathers across his collarbones jumped and twitched with his movements, was Jensen’s very own brand of personal torture.

All he could think about was how much he wanted to lick and suck at every inch of that tattooed skin and how fucking majestic it would be to have a strong and capable man like Jared gracefully sink to his knees in front of him and put those lips to better use.

Jensen shifted uncomfortably in his seat, feeling his dick stir with interest at the thought.

Thank god, Jared seemed to feel something similar, because they both drained their last beer a little quicker than necessary and when their hungry eyes met over the counter top, smiles still in place from whatever stupid thing either one of them had last said as they ordered the bill. 

“Wanna get out of here?”

Jensen bit his lower lip and nodded, eyes flashing with nervous excitement. “My place?”

Tom wasn’t going to be back until Sunday.

 

  
“So this is where you spend most of your days, huh?” Jared whistled low under his breath as he stepped inside the apartment and took a cursory look around. 

The living room looked like straight out of one of these lifestyle magazines.

Clean lines, simple designs and mostly earthy brown as a dominant color.

The furniture seemed expensive and elegant, highlighted by a few color accents in burnt orange and rich greens and the walls were lined with mahogany bookshelves.

The floor was polished and Jared’s eyes were instantly drawn to the three sketches that hung framed on the walls above the leather couch.

“You want a beer or something?” Jensen pulled open the fridge in their built-in kitchen and Jared’s eyes hungrily trailed down the hollow of his spine to the swell of his ass. “Heineken okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jared shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it on the backrest of the leather couch. He took a closer look at the sketches on the wall and swallowed, fingers automatically reaching up to trace the delicate pencil lines with reverence.

The first one was a nude, a young woman sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest and one arm slung around her bare middle to cover her breasts. She was holding up her hair with the other hand, a few curls falling loose and beautifully framing her soft features.

The next one was a little bigger and drawn with a different technique. It was a picture of Newbury Street, one of Boston’s most prestigious shopping areas, and Jared instantly recognized some of the shops. The streets were crowded with faceless strangers- all of them carrying colorful umbrellas as it poured from the darkened sky. Jared let his appraising gaze linger over the puddles of water Jensen had drawn onto the cobbled pavement, the reflections of the street lanterns and car’s headlights must have been really hard to capture but he had done an excellent job at it.

“These yours?” Jared asked when Jensen handed him a beer.

“Yeah,” Jensen’s smile was a little strained, some of the ever-present insecurity bleeding into his gaze as he waited for Jared’s reaction. “What do you think?”

Jared took a sip of his beer and put the bottle down on the fancy glass table next to them. “I don’t know a whole lot about art or anything but these are real fucking impressive.”

Even in the relative darkness of the room, with only the soft glow of the floor lamp to illuminate Jensen’s features, half of his face still cast in shadow, Jared could see that Jensen’s cheeks were suddenly kissed a deep shade of pink, the blooming color so avid against his freckled skin.

“They’re alright I guess,“ Jensen’s words broke off in a bashful murmur and Jared didn’t even try to fight back the smile that was breaking out on his lips.

“You’re adorable when you get all shy and embarrassed like that.”

Jensen’s mouth dropped open, but no words escaped him.

He was visibly nervous, fine tremors were wrecking his spine as he stood frozen under Jared’s intense gaze.

“C’mere,” Jared crooked a finger alluringly and Jensen only hesitated for a second before he followed the command, like their bodies were connected by some kind of invisible rubber band and somebody had just pulled it taut.

Jared sidled up against Jensen’s smaller one as he settled his large palms on the man’s narrow hips, muscular arms falling to either side of him. “We don’t have to do anything, you know. Give me the word and I’ll be on my way home.”

It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, trying to quench the ever-growing fire that burned sharp and hot inside of him, holding back in the face of temptation.

But he meant it.

One word of protest from Jensen’s lips and he would leave, respecting the younger man’s decision.

“Don’t,” Jensen’s voice was barely above an exhale and then just like that, without really thinking, Jared leaned forward to brush their lips together.

It was nothing like the fiery make-out-sessions they’ve shared before, wasn’t as desperate or hurried as and didn’t hold any of the scorching heat that used to set their blood on fire.

This was something else, it was hesitant and tender and filled with the kind of insecure longing that neither of them could shake off when it came to each other.

“Don't leave,” Jensen toyed with the hair at the base of Jared’s neck, his gorgeous green eyes focused on Jared’s lips again, like he had forgotten there was a world outside of the two of them. "Please.”

_God fucking damn it._

The kid really knew how to bring him to his knees.

Jared kissed him again, slid his large palm down over Jensen’s chest and feeling the muscle quiver beneath the smooth skin at the touch. He lowered his mouth to nip at the soft skin just underneath the man’s strong jaw, fingers caressing Jensen’s torso and dipping into his belly button, making him gasp and squirm in response.

“Shh… gonna take good care of you,” Jared soothed, lowering his lips to Jensen’s chest and teasingly circling one of his nipples through the dampened fabric of his shirt before latching on and sucking on it. Jensen gasped, grinding his swelling erection against Jared’s hips and Jared thrust forward to meet him, searching more of the delicious friction.

“Jay… I- I don’t—“ Jensen’s voice was whisper-soft and full of worry. “I haven’t—“

_I haven’t done this in a while._

_I don’t know If we should take it this far._

Whatever it was that was going on in Jensen’s mind right now, whatever insecurities were keeping the kid from letting go, they had nothing to do with a lack of willingness from his side. Not with the way his eyes were heavy with desire, cheeks flushed a deep shade of pink all the way across his lean chest and down to his lower half where his cock was already bulging against his jeans and begging for attention.

“Hey, you trust me, right?”

Jensen bit down on his lower lip and Jared pressed a lingering kiss to his neck, feeling his frantic pulse beneath his lips. He didn’t need to answer- not with the way his breath hitched when Jared ran his tongue over his carotid, not with the way he bore his neck to him in utter confidence and trust.  

“Gonna make you feel so good,” Jared ghosted his fingers over Jensen’s hardening cock, causing it to swell even more beneath the fabric of his jeans.

Jensen let out a tiny whimper, eyes fluttering shut with desire and something snapped inside of Jared at the sound of it.

He growled- fucking _growled_ , before grabbing a handful of Jensen’s soft spikes and angling his face to the side so he had better access. He kissed him hard before pushing him backward. Jensen’s knees hit the couch and swallowed his surprised gasp when he fell down against the cushions.

Not giving Jensen time to recover, Jared crawled down on top of Jensen’s quivering body, long fingers slipping beneath the younger man’s T-shirt and gently tracing the scalding hot skin beneath. "That what you want, Jen? For me to stay here tonight? Suck you so hard you'll forget your own fucking name?"

“Shit, Jay,” Jensen arched up from the couch when Jared slid his hands down to his crotch, palming the curve of his half-hard cock beneath the fabric of his faded jeans. Fumbling with the belt buckle, Jared made short work of the blonde’s zipper and grinned when he felt the damp material beneath- because  _fuck, yeah,_ Jensen was definitely the kind of prestigious college kid to wear  _black silk_ for underwear.

“Fuck, c'mon,” Jensen moaned almost desperately, bucking up into the unsatisfying touch.

“Impatient, are we?” Jensen groaned when Jared leaned down to mouth at Jensen’s open fly, trailing his lips against the hot silk pulled taut over Jensen’s rapidly swelling groin. Jared gave a breathy laugh against Jensen’s length, knowing what the vibrations would do to the writhing man beneath him. “So fucking eager for it.”

He worked his fingers beneath the waistband of the kid’s boxers, touching hot skin beneath and trailing a line of teasing open-mouthed kisses against Jensen’s quaking thighs where they bracketed Jared’s head.

“God…” a loud moan escaped Jensen’s lips when Jared guided him into his mouth and flicked his tongue over the swollen tip of his shaft, before swallowing him down all the way in one go.

“Jared, fucking—  _fuck_!“ Jensen threw his head back, eyes squeezed shut when he felt himself nudge the back of Jared’s throat, but the taller man just swallowed, breathing deeply through his nose as if he didn’t even  _possess_  a fucking gag reflex.

He pulled back torturously slow, eyes never leaving Jensen’s face as he ran his hot tongue along the veined underside of Jensen’s dick, before taking him back in.

Jared drank in the sight of him- of the man’s corded neck thrown back in ecstasy- of the way his eyelids fluttered with every drag of Jared’s tongue against his hot flesh. And something deep and dangerous blossomed in his chest at the sight of Jensen spread out beneath him.

Jensen’s lashes were long and dark against his flushed skin, his kiss-swollen lips deliciously parted as he gasped for air. A powerful surge of _mineminemine_  shot through Jared at the delicious moans and whimpers that left Jensen’s lips- knowing that every noise wrung from the younger man’s throat was his doing and  _his_  alone. 

He was rock hard in the confines of his own jeans- cock straining against the restricting fabric of his boxers and the kid hadn’t even  _touched_  him yet.

Jensen made an odd broken off noise when Jared pulled back far enough to meet his hooded eyes over the length of his shivering body and gathered up a trickle of pre-come from Jensen’s leaking slit.

“ _Shit_ , Jay—“ Jensen was past the point of coherency as he thrashed against the leather of the couch, eyes pleading. “ _Please_.”

And if the uncontrollable trembling in Jensen’s thighs wasn’t enough of an indication as to how much he loved this, the steady rise and fall of his slender hips sure as hell gave him away.

Jared worked back up and down, keeping a constant rhythm that was in tune with Jensen’s erratic thrusts and that he knew- from experience- would drive any guy crazy.

“Jesus, I’m gonna—“ Jensen bucked and the fingers in Jared’s hair tightened to a point where burning pain was shooting through his scalp. Jared kept going, spurred on by the soft little gasps and moans that turned into keens and made his own cock throb with mind-consuming want. He flicked his tongue over the tip once more and Jensen came with a long, shuddering shout of his name, shooting thick spurts of hot seed down his throat, before slumping back against the cushions, utterly spent.

Jared pulled off with a slick squelch that would have doubtlessly had Jensen blushing in shame if the kid wasn’t too fucked out to notice. He took a few calming breaths, gulping some much-needed oxygen down his abused throat.

Jensen looked breathtaking like this- his hair a mess, face flushed red from exertion and lips still parted for rapid little pants of air as he tried to catch his breath.

“Y’alright?” Jared leaned forward, bracing himself on his elbows as he hovered mere inches above Jensen’s beautiful face.

“Y-yeah, god… how did you—that w-was—“

“Shh, take it easy. Just breathe for a second,” Jared soothed and tenderly thumbed at the glistening tears that had gathered in the corner of Jensen’s thick, dark curl of lashes.

Jensen instantly stilled, catching his breath at the indirect order as his orgasm slowly began to fade. He reached up with shaking fingers to trail his fingertips over Jared’s phoenix tattoo—strange glint of fascination in his ocean deep pools of green. But the gentle touch did nothing to quench Jared’s raging desire and he bit back a soft moan, cock still painfully hard in his pants.

Jensen’s eyes widened in sudden realization when he felt Jared’s erection pressed against his hip. “You’re still— ”

“Ye’ don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for…” Damn if these weren’t the hardest words Jared had ever uttered, but the thought of pressuring Jensen into something was enough to break through the nearly inhuman surge of desire that had built up inside of him over the past twenty minutes- hell, over the past four months, to be exact. “I-I’ll just… I’ll take care of it. It’s alright.”

And this was new to Jared because he had never been shy about the things he wanted in life and most of the time he just took them- searching his own pleasure and satisfaction first and foremost before everybody else’s.

He had done enough sleeping around to know that he was definitely not the long-haul kind of guy, couldn’t even imagine connecting with someone beyond the most primal, animalistic aspect of raw physical pleasure that was _sex_ , but this kid on the couch beneath him wasn’t the same… Jensen wasn’t just another nameless, faceless, meaningless one-night-stand. And he deserved better than to be treated as such.  

Jared couldn’t just take his pleasure and leave when it came to Jensen. And strangely enough, he didn’t want to.

What he wanted was for the kid to loosen up a little. To have fun. To feel _good_.

For the first time in a long time, Jared didn't expect anything in return.

“Jared…” Jensen protested softly- forehead scrunched up adorably as he pressed his sweaty palms against Jared’s collarbone, right over the tattooed wings of his phoenix. “Let me—“

“I told you it’s fine.”

“Yeah, well, not to me, okay?” Jensen said, some of the strength returning to his voice as his green eyes flashed with unspoken promise. “I _want_ to.”    
  
And Jared was cool with being a fucking grade-A gentleman and all, but he sure as fuck wasn’t a saint.

So when Jensen placed his hand on Jared’s belt buckle and worked his way beneath the seam of his boxer briefs, Jared just looked up him with a hooded gaze, desire surging through him with enough force to make him dizzy.

“This okay?” the younger man breathed out, flicking his thumb across Jared’s swollen head and Jared muffled his own groan against Jensen’s mouth in a hungry tangle of lips and teeth.

“Fuck yeah,” his voice came out hoarse and pleading when Jensen started dragging his palms along his the shaft of his dick, pumping him with sure, steady jerks of his wrists. He thrust up into Jensen’s fist, meeting his rhythm as the blonde worked his cock harder, faster- chasing his own release frantically until he tipped over the edge, a guttural sound ripping from his throat as his hips stuttered and his whole body tensed.

He came hard and fast, black spots dancing at the edge of his vision while Jensen slumped a little against him, burying his face against the sweaty slope of Jared’s neck.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jared swore, trying to catch his breath and running a lazy hand through the lukewarm mess of come on Jensen’s chest. “You're gonna be the death of me.”

 

   
When Jensen woke up the next morning, it was to the sound of chirping birds and the smell of something burning in the kitchen.

He dragged one heavy eyelid up to blink against the sun rays filtering through the curtain and groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes to block out the unwanted brightness.

Jensen had about two minutes worth of drowsy peacefulness before the memories from the previous night slammed back with full force and the image of Jared with his lips stretched around his cock appeared behind his eyelids.

He groaned again, this time for a whole new reason, before sitting up in bed. 

Their clothes lay scattered carelessly across the bedroom floor.

His lips were still tingling and slightly numb from all the kissing they’d done the night before, making out lazily until the early morning hours and falling asleep in each other’s arms like a love-sick couple of teenagers.

Jared’s side of the bed (and when had he fucking started referring to either side of his bed as Jared’s?) was vacated, so Jensen made to follow him outside.

“Morning,” Jared grinned at him from where he was casually leaning against the kitchen island, naked save for the towel that was loosely wrapped around his waist. “About time you rolled your lazy ass out of bed.”

“How long have you been up?” Jensen marched over to the kitchen and then stopped when he noticed that the couch had been cleaned and that all the pillows and cushions had been put back into place neatly.

“Did you tidy up?” The shock must have been visible on his face because Jared ducked his head a little before pouring Jensen a mug of steaming coffee and handing it over.

“Yeah. I also took a shower, which, as much as I love to see you with my come smeared all over your body, you should do, too. Breakfast will be ready in ten.”

Jensen didn’t know what to say, his mouth was still hanging open and his legs a little mushy. “You could have woken me up, you know?”

“I got it,” Jared reassured, his inked phoenix wings moving delicately up and down his muscles when he flexed them. “You needed the rest."

Jensen’s mouth went dry as he caught himself staring at the glistening tracks of water against Jared’s skin.

He flashed Jensen a smug little grin, looking way too fucking proud of himself.

Jensen shook his head, snorting softly. “I’ll be in the bathroom if you need anything.”

 

 

“This isn’t half bad, you know?” Jensen took a forkful of his scrambled eggs and chased it down with a sip of coffee.

To his surprise, Jared had prepared a decent breakfast, including crispy strips of bacon and a few slightly burnt pancakes from Aunt Jemima’s baking mixture.

“Don’t get too used to it,” Jared bumped Jensen’s knee beneath the table.

There was a bouquet of flowers in the middle of the dining table and after having stared at it in silence for a while, Jared finally leaned over to look at the small card that was attached to the stem of the lilies.

“Hey, don’t touch that,” Jensen scolded, but it was too late.

 **_Forgive me – Matt_** was written on the paper in neat handwriting and Jared felt his insides clench

Hands curling tight around the hilt of his butter knife, Jared’s eyes narrowed in anger. “I thought he didn’t do anything?”

“He didn’t,” Jensen insisted.

“So he’s asking for your forgiveness for no particular reason?”

Jensen’s lips tightened. “Look, it’s in the past, okay? Can you just let it go?”

Jared wasn't satisfied with the obvious brush-off. He leaned forward in his seat, expression devoid of the softness it had held just a minute ago.

It was almost scary, sometimes, how quickly he could go from tender to stone-cold fury in the span of seconds.

“I’m gonna ask you this one more time. Did he hurt you?” Jared’s voice was cool and collected on the outside, but Jensen could hear the threat that rested beneath the surface.

“No,” he said, making sure to meet Jared’s gaze over the table and convey the truth in his words. “He didn’t, alright? Now quit it with the attitude. I haven’t even seen Matt in almost a week."

Jared said nothing, shoulders still tense with skepticism and rightful wariness. Jensen wasn’t sure why he didn’t just tell Jared about what had happened with Matt when he had shown up drunk on their doorstep last week.

But something was telling him that Jared wouldn’t grant forgiveness over what had happened as easily as Jensen did, so he kept his mouth shut.

“You got classes today?” Jared finally asked, as if to steer the conversation back into a more amicable direction and keep them both from addressing the elephant in the room.

Jensen nodded absent-mindedly. “Yeah and practice, too.”

“Guess I won’t see much of you tonight, then,” Jared responded and Jensen couldn’t help but notice the twinge of disappointment in his voice.

Jensen bit his lip. Instead of answering, he got up from his seat and nodded towards his bedroom. “Hey, you wanna see what I’ve been working on for the Lightning?”

Jared looked mildly surprised, but got up from his seat and followed him, anyway. “Do you even have to ask?”

Despite the fact that they had spent the night in Jensen’s room, Jared had been too preoccupied with well, _Jensen,_  to take in the spacious bedroom with its mahogany furniture, the ceiling to floor windows and the pin board with photographs covering one of the walls.

An ancient globe was sitting on Jensen’s night stand and a few of his anatomy books were piling on the floor next to his bed.

There was an old wooden chest in front of his poster bed and Jensen opened it carefully, before pulling out a black artist folder.

“It’s not really finished yet. But the other day, when Chris showed me his tattoos, I got this idea and then I started making some perfunctory sketches.”

He pulled a drawing of two nautical stars from his folder and held them up for Jared’s expecting eyes.

The taller man swallowed, reaching out to hold the thick paper in his hands. It wasn’t the most intricate drawing Jensen had ever shown him, but it still managed to steal his breath away.

“This is…“

“It’s his favorite,” Jensen rushed to explain. “I mean, he didn’t say it was his favorite, but I could tell, you know? It was in the way he talked about it.”

“It was his first one. He never shuts up about it,” Jared chuckled at the memory, shaking his head a little. He let his fingertips trail over the black lines and then stopped, looking up from behind a curtain of curly brown bangs. “You got a pencil?”

Jensen handed him one and Jared thickened one of the lines in the middle, carefully retracing it with his own. “Your shading is a little off. You know, Chris is gonna be ecstatic to know you picked one of his tats as a motive.”

He chewed on his bottom lips, hiding a small smile as he watched Jared work the sketch over with sure pencil strokes.

“Jay, that’s not the whole design yet,” he corrected softly. “When I heard Chris talking about his tattoos, I was fascinated by the passion in his voice and I kind of realized that this is something that you guys connect and bond over.”

“You wanna base the project on our tattoos?”

Jensen nodded fervently. “I was thinking Chris’ nautical star on the front bender, maybe your wolf on the fairing and Steve’s tribal around the gas tank. I still need to figure the rest of them out, but yeah, basically, that’s the idea.”

Jared didn’t say anything for a long time. In fact, he was quiet for so long that Jensen’s palms grew a little sweaty with trepidation.

“You don’t like it,” his voice shook a little. Disappointment bled into his tone. “That’s okay, I mean… it was just an idea. I can still change it.“

Jared shut Jensen up with an uncharacteristically tender kiss. 

Their stormy eyes met over the drawing and Jensen swallowed, feeling a little dizzy from the rapid beat of his heart.

“It’s perfect.”

 

   
With Halloween coming up, Jensen found himself carving pumpkins in the middle of their newspaper-covered mahogany floor.

Their whole living room was a mess, thready pumpkin seeds and intestines spread out across the floor and the carpets despite all the precautions they had taken to prevent it from happening.

“Why does it look like something exploded in here?” Mike stepped through the door, carrying a six pack of beer and something that looked like a paper bag from the costume store in his hands.

“Because something _did_ ,” Tom pointed at the gooey looking brownish pulp of what used to be Misha’s Jack-o-Lantern on the ground next to the couch. “He dropped it five minutes ago… should have seen his face. It was hilarious.”

“My fingers were slippery, okay?” Misha defended, wiping at the orange mess with a disgruntled expression on his face. “And that was some real impressive artwork right there, so stop being an asshole and help me clean this shit up.”

Jensen couldn’t remember when or how they had kicked off the tradition of carving pumpkins and deciding which costumes to wear (and more importantly- what party to go to) with a marathon of Michael Myers movies in the background, but here they were again- another year down the road.

Danneel was sifting through a box of old clothes her mother had dropped off earlier that day, assembling some kind of hippie-dippy, flower-power outfit for herself while Misha had proudly displayed the ‘dick-in-a-box’ ‘outfit’ he had ordered from Amazon.  
Tommy and Michael were doubtlessly going for some sort of couple- costume, which only left Jensen, who had all but forgotten to get anything for himself in the light of everything that had been going on in the past weeks.

Quite frankly, he wasn’t in the mood to go to a party anyway, when there was a very real risk for him to run into the guy whose heart he had broken a week ago.

“Oh c’mon, Jense!” Misha protested, dumping the pumpkin goo into the garbage. “We don’t even know if Matt’s going to be there, I mean the guy hasn’t even left his goddamn dorm in a week.”

Jensen felt a pang of guilt at that, quickly dropping his gaze to the floor. The memory of Matt’s hurt expression was still too fresh in his mind and the knowledge that the guy was missing classes over their break-up did nothing to quench the simmering guilt in his chest.

“Great, idiot, now you’ve made him feel even worse than before,” Danneel rolled her eyes from where she was trying to shimmy into a short leather skirt with a funky looking fringe at the bottom.

She was practically naked, not a trace of modesty on her as she unclasped her bra and pulled the dress the rest of the way up.

Perks of being best friends with a bunch of gays; nobody paid her naked body attention.

Jensen respectfully dropped his gaze, looking back down to the jack-o-lantern in his hands and finishing the last touches to the Cheshire cat he had chosen as a motif.

“He’s got a point, you know?” Mike opened up a can of coke and took a sip before casually leaning back against the kitchen counter.

He was still wearing his tailored suit- the olive green one with the black and silver tie Tom had bought him for their previous anniversary.

“Matt’s probably not going to be there and even if he was, the two of you are history. He’s lucky you didn’t file a lawsuit after what he did.”

Jensen rolled his eyes at the drama. “Could we please not make a bigger deal out of this than necessary? I told you he apologized, alright? He made a mistake, that’s it.”

“He slammed you up against the wall,” Tom reminded Jensen with a grim expression on his face, lips thinning out into a narrow line. “He called you a slut and punched a hole in the wall right next to your face. With all due respect, that’s not a mistake, that’s  _assault_ , Jensen.”

“Alright, I get it!” Jensen exclaimed in a huff, lifting both his arms in the air and getting up from the ground. “So he was drunk off his ass and he got a little rough. Doesn’t mean he’s abusive or whatever. Now would you please just drop it?”

Before anyone could respond, the doorbell rang, effectively breaking the moment.

_Jesus, what was it with the interruptions lately?_

Jensen practically ripped the door open only to come face to face with a young woman.

“Uh…” she blinked up at him, knuckles still raised in mid-movement. “Jensen, right?”

Her cheeks were a little rounder than when he had first seen her, eyes less angry and scared, but there was no mistaking the petite frame and brunette curls of the woman in front of him.

“Sandy?” he asked, not quite believing it. “What are you doing here?”

How did she even know where he lived?

She shrugged, her nervous gaze flickered over to everyone huddled in the room behind him. “I need to talk to you... in private.”

 

   
“You don’t seem like the smoking type.”

“Because I’m a med-student?”

“Because you’re smarter than that,” Sandy replied.

She was shaking in the cool autumn air and Jensen wordlessly pulled out of his jacket and wrapped it around her small shoulders.

“It’s fucking cold and you should have brought a jacket,” he returned easily, cigarette loosely hanging from the corner of his lips. “Guess we can’t be smart all the time.”

He wasn’t really sure what Sandy wanted from him or why she had tracked him down, but the one thing he knew for certain was that this was the kind of conversation that would require nicotine.

“So,” he gently sucked on the end as he lit it, the flame from his zippo burning the tip. “Not that I’m complaining about your little late-night-visit or anything, but what’s this about?”

“Straight down to business, huh?” she tried to go for a smile, but it wilted before it could reach her eyes, something obviously bothering her.

Jensen stopped in his tracks, waiting for her to do the same.

They were completely alone, an all-abandoned trail that was used as a shortcut from the bio lab to the academic office during the day and rarely ever used during the night. No unwanted distractions or audience.

“Look,” he sighed, smoke filtering through the air between them. “I’m gonna need you to be honest with me in order to help you.”

“Who says I need your help?”

Jensen tilted his head to the side- giving her a look. “It’s ten-thirty on a Thursday night and a near-stranger I’ve had one, rather awkward encounter with, shows up on my doorstep. You’re right, there’s absolutely nothing suspicious about that.”

Sandy pursed her lips and looked away, pulling Jensen’s jacket tighter around her waist and letting her hands linger there. “If you put it that way…”

She was wearing a black hoodie, which was like putting on a flashing neon sign of suspiciousness and Jensen frowned, wondering why she would go with such a bad choice of clothing, especially given that she seemed like she had nothing to hide.

And then realization hit him like a freight train.

Well, fuck.

Immediately, Jensen dropped his half-finished cigarette to the ground, stomping it out.

He ran both hands through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut and letting out a slow breath, some of the residual smoke leaving his lungs and twirling through the pitch black night.

It had all been so _obvious._

Why would Sandy come back to Boston if things with Chad had really been ended?

She must have been in town before the accident because she had arrived at the scene shortly after Jared, Chris and Jensen had gotten to the hospital and there was no fucking way she could have made it all the from New York to Boston in under four hours.

Then there had been the whole thing with the missing engagement ring. Not to mention the fact that four freaking months seemed like a ridiculously short amount of time to get over a break-up.

The hoodie was just the last clue to tip him off… Black and at least three numbers too wide on her petite frame, perfectly concealing what Jensen suspected must have been the slight swell of her stomach beneath.

“How far along are you?”

“A little over four months,” she spoke slowly like the words were unwilling to leave her lips and there was a note of sadness to them, a trace of resignation.

And Jensen hated the sound of that, a dark foreboding already forming in his chest and causing his heart to thud a little heavier in his chest.

When they had first met in the hospital she had been wearing normal clothes- no baby bump visible beneath her shirt, not that Jensen or anyone else would have paid particular attention to it.

“Chad’s I assume?”

She nodded. Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears and Jensen cursed under his breath, running a shaky hand through his hair.

“Look, I don’t know what you expect me to do about this, but you definitely need to get checked out by a doctor, alright? I can give you some contacts if you want. I know some very capable gynecologists who would take you on without asking too many questions—“

“No, stop. I don’t even _want_ it… I mean I-I can’t have it, okay?”

Jensen froze, feeling like someone had kicked him in the lungs.

He had expected the words, but what he hadn’t expected was the punch they were packing.

“Look,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I know this whole situation must be scary to you. You’re expecting a child and the father of the baby is in a coma. But Chad’s doing really well, his condition improved a lot over the past week and he could be waking up any day now. That’s something to hold onto, alright?”

“Yeah,” She snorted humorlessly, shaking her head. “And when he wakes up we’ll all just play happy family. Just me, him and our little girl, living the fucking dream. We'll cruise down the highways at top speed and rob some banks to pay for her diapers.”

Jensen was at a loss here. He honestly didn’t know what she wanted him to say.

“Sandy... I can see why you’d think the life Chad’s been living isn’t the right kind of environment to raise a child in, seriously, I agree. But who says you’ll have to continue down this road?”

“Because there’s no way to hit the brakes, okay?” Sandy beckoned loudly enough to make him wince. “Once you’re too deep into this, there’s no way to get out, believe me, I fucking tried. This life, it consumes you and it won’t let go until you’re six feet under the ground.”

“I don’t understand,” Jensen frowned, remembering what Jared had told him about Sandy the day after the accident. “I thought you _did_ get out. I thought you started a new life in Upstate New York, fiancée and all.”

“I was never there,” Sandy huffed out a shaky laugh, eyes glistening in the dark. “I lived with my cousin and her husband just outside of Salem. Chad wouldn’t stop calling me, so I— I had to tell him something that would—“ she broke herself off and her breath hitched in a small sob.

_Something that would break his heart._

It all made perfect sense.

Salem was just a drive away from Boston, so that explained why Sandy had been at the hospital so fast after what happened to Chad.

There had never been a fiancée.

The whole engagement had been a lie to get Chad to let her go for good, to make the whole gang hate her for not only having left their side but for hurting Chad so deeply in the process.

It had been a ploy to cut all ties to the Black Legion. Out of fear for her own life. And for the life of her unborn child.

“Jensen if I get this baby now- after what happened in the clubhouse with the Reapers… after what happened with Chad—“ Sandy reached down to rub over the barely visible swell of her stomach and there was enough devastation in her eyes to let Jensen know that she didn’t actually want an abortion as much as she thought she _needed_ one. “It’s only a matter of time before they’re going to retaliate and I can’t risk making her a target.”

_So you’re taking a shortcut? Killing her off straight away, not even trying to protect her?_

Jensen bit the words back, knowing it wasn’t his place to say them out loud.

“Do you know what viability means?” He asked softly and Sandy shook her head.

“That’s a baby’s ability to survive outside of the mother’s womb. Most medical institutions in the US establish viability at 24 weeks of gestation, which means if you’re really in your fourth month, termination of the pregnancy is still a possibility.”

Jensen pulled out a small notebook from his jeans pockets (the one he had used earlier to draft a sketch for the jack-o-lantern) and quickly jolted down three numbers.

He ripped the page out of the book and handed it to Sandy. “Dr. Wynters is a close friend of mine, she’s an excellent physician and she can talk to you about all your possibilities. The second contact is a local gynecologist and the last one is my private cell phone number for emergencies. I want you to get checked out. And then I want you to think about this real hard, okay?”

He gave her a last, intense look before turning back towards Lionel Hall but Sandy caught his arm.

“Wait, Jensen,” she looked at him through a blurred vision. “If you were in my shoes, I mean if you and Jared- if something _happened_ and it was obvious that the whole family thing could never work out between the two of you, you’d do the same fucking thing, right? You’d also get rid of it?”

For a second Jensen forgot how to breathe, lungs freezing to ice in his chest.

The words hit him like a ton of bricks.

If someone had asked him that exact same question three weeks ago he would have at least contemplated both options, but now?

For a split second, the image of a little baby boy with dimples and chestnut colored hair flashed in his mind’s eye and it wasn’t so much the image itself that scared him, as it was the gaping black hole of desire it left behind.

He swallowed nervously around the sudden lump in his throat, looking anywhere but at Sandy. “I-I don’t—“

“You’re right, that was stupid of me to ask, I’m sorry. I’m just so confused and it’s not like you would ever be stupid enough to get yourself into a situation like that, anyway, “ she trailed off nervously, looking two seconds away from a nervous breakdown and in her defense, Jensen was pretty sure she wasn’t actually aware of the fact that her rush of words made everything even worse.

_Not like you would get yourself into that same situation… yeah right._

The only thing standing between Jensen and an unwanted pregnancy at the moment was his trust in condoms and the gang members’ more than-a-little-frustrating habit of walking in on them when things were about to get interesting.

But of course, Sandy couldn’t know that. She was just worried and scared to death at the prospect of becoming a mother. “You can’t tell anyone, right? Especially not Jared. He’d flip his shit if he knew.”

“I won’t. What you’ve told me is under medical confidentiality,” Jensen assured her, his insides churning at the prospect of having to lie to Jared about something so important. “Just… call me if you need anything, okay?”

When Jensen returned to his dorm about an hour and half a pack of cigarettes later, everyone else had already gone to bed. 

He dove under the covers and squeezed his eyes shut against the raging storm of thoughts in his mind.

Sandy was pregnant with Chad’s baby and her words were still ringing through his mind.

_I mean if you and Jared… if something happened— and it was obvious that the whole family thing could never work out, you’d do the same fucking thing, right?_

And how fucked up was it, that the scariest thing of them all, even scarier than the looming threat of the Reaper’s retaliation and the impending war between the gangs, was that Jensen just couldn’t seem to get the image of a certain green-eyed baby with rosy cheeks and auburn hair out of his goddamn mind?

 

 

Lucian was leaning back in his office chair, rolling up the sleeves of his unbuttoned dress shirt, tie loose around his neck when Jackson and Leroy came through the doorway.

He cocked an expectant eyebrow without really meeting his men’s eyes. “Got something?”

“You’ll love this, boss,” the smile in Leroy’s voice caught his attention and he looked up to see that Jackson was pulling photos from an envelope.

The pictures landed on his desk with a dull thud and Lucian spread them out across the table top before lighting up his cigar.

There were a few shots of Jeff in his fucking rust bucket of a truck. _Which reminded him…_

“You cut the wires?” he asked in a raspy voice, coughing when some of the thick cigar smoke tickled burned down his airways.

“One in the front and one in the back, just like you told us.”

“What about Jared?” Lucian had special plans for the younger one, the one who went after his men all by himself and thought he could get away with beating them into bloody pulps in the middle of their clubhouse.

He was going to die _slowly_.

But first- _first_ he was going to lose every single thing he held dear in his life.

Leroy and Jackson exchanged a gleeful look before one of them stepped up to the table and dug one picture out of the pile.

It showed Jared sitting on a bike with another guy plastered to his back. Boy couldn’t have been older than twenty-one, twenty-two, bright green eyes and a splatter of freckles across his cheeks. Wide grin. Clean clothes. Pouty, kissable lips like straight from a porn mag.

“Who’s the kid?”

“Some college boy from Harvard. He’s been hanging with them for almost a month now,” Jackson trailed off and pointed at another picture on the table, this one depicting both boys in some sort of restaurant, eyes sparkling and equal smiles splitting their faces in half.

“There’s one more,” Leroy grinned and pulled his phone from his pocket. Lucian squinted down at the screen and nearly did a double take.

It showed the boys with their fingers entangled, the blond one with his back turned and in the front, dragging Jared towards the door of a fancy-looking college building, but it was the look on Jared’s face that made Lucian gulp with barely contained glee.

Jared’s eyes were bright with undisguised adoration, the smile on his lips was soft, _doting_.

Bingo.

“I want Jeffrey dead first, then we’ll deal with the kid,” Lucian grinned before stomping his glowing cigar out on Jared’s face and watching the photograph go up in flames and burn to ashes.

Just like a _phoenix_ , he thought to himself, a malicious smile growing on his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!! Big thank-you (as always) goes out to my beta TheBoys and to ficluv82 for helping me out with the new artwork for this fic!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for bad language, implied and graphic sexual content, use of weapons.

****

** **

**Open Road  
Chapter 11**

Jeff’s house was by no means a mansion, but it was the only real home Jared had ever known.

The old roof was leaking in several places, the latches on the door were broken and the outer walls of the building were in urgent need of a paint job, but it was all they had ever needed between the two of them.

Jared didn’t bother locking the door as he stepped inside. The only things worth stealing in this house were the few valuable possession each of them kept on their bodies and it wasn’t like anybody would try to mess with them.

“Jeff?” He let his voice echo through the abandoned living room and then stilled when he wasn’t rewarded with the usual grunt of acknowledgment.

“Where the hell are you?“ he asked and then came to an abrupt halt in the kitchen when he spotted Jeff’s slumped form on the dirty tiles right next to the fridge.

“Jeff!” All the air left his lungs in a whoosh and he was on the ground next to him before he consciously made the decision to move, clumsy fingers reaching up to press against Jeff’s pulse point.

“Jeff, wake the fuck up, man, c’mon!” he slapped the older man’s cheeks, trying to rouse him, but all it got him in response was a weak groan and a flutter of Jeff’s eyelids.

The stench of booze clung heavily to his clothes, almost like he had taken a bath in it, and Jared couldn’t help the surge of anger that flooded him at the realization that Jeff had passed out drunk.

“Fucking idiot,” he growled and gave Jeff one last hard jostle before getting up and filling a glass with ice-cold water.

Knowing there would be no other way to rouse Jeff, he splashed it into the older man’s face and watched with grim satisfaction as he jerked awake, sputtering and cursing, blood-shot eyes ripped wide open in panic. “W-wha—“

“Rise and fucking shine, dumbass.”

The older man cursed under his breath, reaching up to wipe at the water dripping down his chin and cheeks before looking up to meet Jared’s gaze. “The fuck did ye do that for?”

“You passed out on the fucking kitchen floor,” Jared dropped the empty glass back into their dirty sink with a dull clatter. “After having downed half a bottle of Jack.”

“You my fucking mother or somethin’?”

“No, I’m not,” Jared snorted. “But I’m the next best thing you've got for a family, so how about next time when you decide to go and get yourself killed you give me the fucking heads-up?”

His heart was beating away with painful irritation, blood simmering beneath his skin. He drove both his hands through his brunette hair before fixating Jeff with an accusatory glare.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” Jared thundered, growing more annoyed by the second at having to watch Jeff’s clumsy attempts at getting his drunk ass off the kitchen floor. “What if somebody had seen you like this? What if one of the Reapers had followed you home? You think you’d have stood a fucking chance against them in a fight? Fuck, Jeff, you shouldn’t even have been riding your damn bike like this!”

“Oh, yeah?” Jeff’s voice was hoarse with a bone-deep exhaustion. The dark circles under his eyes and slight gauntness of his face were speaking of restless nights and much more alcohol than just the bottle of Jack he had killed tonight. “Well, I got breaking news for you, Jay. You’re not exactly a-a poster boy for makin’ the right decisions yerself.”

“Yeah, but I’m not the one passed out on our kitchen floor right now!” Jared swiped a stack of dirty plates from the counter with an angry growl and watched them shatter on the ground.

The outburst was short-lived and followed by terse silence.

Seconds ticked by and then Jared sagged a little, all the pent-up anger and frustration suddenly drained from his body. He let out a slow exhale, deliberately uncurling his fingers from his sides, before washing a hand over his tired face.

“Look, I’m the last person to tell you how to live your goddamn life, but we can’t allow ourselves to get sloppy like this. Not with the fucking Reapers on our heels.”

It wasn’t so much the thought of Jeff getting drunk that annoyed him, but the fact that he made himself openly vulnerable for attacks, without anybody to back him up, without a weapon on him for defense and worst of all, without a sliver of rationality in his alcohol-swaddled mind.

Something flickered across Jeff’s face, a mixture of regret and shame and it nearly threw Jared to see so much unabashed emotion displayed on the older biker’s face. “I’m scared, son.”

It broke something deep inside of Jared to see him like this, a shivering, miserable mess on the floor, stripped bare of his usual defense as he openly admitted weakness.

Jared let out a breath before crouching down and squeezing Jeff’s shoulder. “Scared of what?”  

To him, Jeffrey had always been this untouchable, bigger-than-life guy.

He was the role model, the mentor, the father figure.

Maybe it was childish heroism, but Jared had never thought there would be anything or anyone Jeff could ever be afraid of.

Jeff’s sluggish gaze rolled up to meet Jared’s and his breath hitched a little when he noticed the tears in the older man’s eyes.

“I can’t lose you, Jay.”

Jared’s throat tightened at the words and he swallowed convulsively, trying not to let them affect him.

Jeff was drunk.

He was concerned about Jared and the rest of the gang all the time. 

“Why would you lose me? I’m gonna outlive you, remember?” Jared tried for a smile, but Jeff wasn’t falling for it.

“They’ll come after you,” Jeff grabbed a handful of Jared’s shirt and twisted it between his fingers. “And they’ll come after that boy of yours, too.”

Something cold and dark nestled in Jared’s heart at the words.

“Alright,” he swallowed around the huge lump in his throat before draping Jeff’s left arm around his neck and snaking his own arm around the man’s shoulders. “That’s enough. You’re wasted. No more somber predictions until you can stand on your own goddamn feet.”

“I can see the way you’re looking at him, you know? You look at him like I used to look at yer mother.”

Jared’s heart skipped a beat and he was so caught off guard that he stumbled, catching himself on the kitchen island to keep them both upright. “Damn it, Jeff.”

They rarely ever talked about Mary between the two of them. The memories were too painful, too cherished to be dug up randomly as part of their daily conversation.

And it would have been easy to blame the slip-up on the alcohol if Jeff wasn’t peering up at Jared with his huge, watery eyes, the desperation behind his words reflected in the depth of his hazel pools.

“You listen to me, son, and you listen good. If that boy means even half as much to you as I think he does, you’d do good to never talk to him again. Break his heart, screw him over, make him wish he’d never met you. Because if you don’t—if you don’t—“

_They’ll go after him._

_They'll kill him._

Stunned, Jared ripped himself out of Jeff’s steel hold and opened his mouth, before closing it again. His chest constricted painfully at the words, at the unwanted images they brought up, but Jeff wasn’t done yet.

“If you really care about him,” the older bit out through clenched teeth. “You should let him go.”

It took a moment for Jared to gather his bearings.  A long, goddamn moment before he felt like he could breathe again or look Jeffrey in the eye without completely losing his shit.

Then he took a deep, cleansing breath.

“Alright, bed, c’mon,”  he gathered his bearings and dragged Jeff all the rest of the way to the living room couch, dropping him unceremoniously into the cushions. 

Grabbing his gun from the nightstand, he dragged a chair across the room and sat down on it.

He wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, not with Jeffrey’s drunk confessions echoing through his mind and not with the man’s glassy, desperate look burnt into the back of his eyelids.

Jeff’s words would be haunting him even long after the night was over.

 

 

  
When Jensen entered _Black Legion Customs_ on a Thursday night after his lacrosse practice, he was a little thrown by the amount of people in the store.

They were mostly crowding the space around the leather gear section and the counter, but Jensen could also see a couple of burly looking bikers with bandanas wrapped around their shaved heads circling one of the displayed vintage bikes like vultures.

Steve was with them, pointing at various parts of the bike and talking animatedly about gear ratios and gore-tex membranes and other stuff Jensen had never heard of. He was so lost in his element that he didn’t even notice Jensen as he hastily made his way to the counter.

“How can I help you, gorgeous?” Katie threw him a dashing smile and Jensen felt a wave of relief that it was her who was working the counter today and not Chase or Genevieve.

In all his time he had spent with the gang, he had warmed up to pretty much everyone except these two. And Katie was always fun to be around.

“Let me guess, you’re here to see Jared.”

A slight blush colored Jensen’s cheeks. “Yeah, actually.“

“Sorry to disappoint, but that bastard hasn’t shown up at work today.”

Jensen had a moment of internal panicking when the words started sinking in.

“Is he alright?” he blurted out, curling his fingers around the black art folder in his hands. “I tried calling him earlier but he didn’t pick up, so I thought I’d drop by and—“

“Relax,” Katie held up a hand. “Jared’s fine, loverboy. He called in sick this morning. Probably just a fucking hangover from last night or something.”

Jensen blinked at her, trying to catch up with the words. His heart was still racing in his chest, going through all the possibilities of why Jared hadn’t picked up the phone or returned any of his calls earlier that day.

Maybe he had found out about Jensen conspiring with Sandy behind his back and keeping secrets from the gang.

Or maybe he’d had an accident with the bike.

Or a run-in with the Reapers.

Jensen’s blood ran cold in his veins at the trail of thoughts.

“You okay?” slim fingers wrapped around his biceps in a reassuring squeeze and Jensen blinked a few times before looking up at Katie’s concerned features. “Do you wanna sit down?”

“What’s wrong with him?” a third voice suddenly chimed in and Jensen instantly recognized it as Chris’.

“I don’t know,” Katie responded with a slightly worried edge to her voice.

“I’m fine, sorry,” Jensen forced himself to answer, still feeling a bit shaky at the possibility of Jared having gotten hurt somehow since he’d last seen him. 

“Just spaced out there for a second,” he lied, but judging from the look on Chris’ and Katie’s face they weren’t really buying it. “I’m fine, really, I just need to—“

“Are you fucking lined up here, or what?” Someone growled at Jensen from behind and even from the corner of his eye Jensen could tell that the guy was at least twice his size and three times his aggression. “I’m done waiting on your pansy ass to get a move on.”

They all froze.

The derisive tone in the other man’s words ripped Jensen out of his thoughts and brought him straight back to the here and now.

“Excuse me?” he turned around to face the troublemaker, shoulders tensing when he took in the mountain of a man in front of him, 200 pounds of knotted muscle and hands so large they looked as if they could rip a man's heart out.

The guy gave him a once-over, sizing him up and smirking a little at his obvious physical advantage. But there was something else in the man’s gaze behind the aggressiveness, it was a glimmer of heat, a badly disguised spark of shameful  _desire_.

Jensen barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.

Just fucking great.

Nothing worse than a closet case who felt the need to prove his manliness.

“What’s a goddamn fag like you doing in a store like this anyway? Trying to find a new lipstick for that pouty mouth of yours?” 

The words sucked all the air out of the room at once, everybody in the shop falling eerily quiet in the wake of the bombshell the guy had just dropped.

Jensen could feel Chris bristling with anger opposite from him, probably two seconds away from jumping over the counter and rearranging the guy’s face.

But he wasn't going to let anyone else fight his battles for him.

“The fuck’s your problem?” he took a step closer, lifting his chin daringly up at the stranger.

Granted, he was sticking out from the rest of the crowd like a sore thumb with his skinny designer jeans and the forest green Hanley and the framed glasses sitting on his nose, but that didn’t give anyone the right to talk to him that way.

“My problem,” the guy said, cracking his knuckles. “Is that you’re talking too much when you should be on your knees, sucking someone’s dick.”

Jensen snorted.

“Preferably yours, I assume,” he gritted out, eyes narrowing. “Cause for a homophobic prick like yourself, you seem to have an awful fascination with my mouth.” 

And that was all it took for the guy to snap.

He moved so fast, Jensen didn’t even see the hit coming, but damn if he didn’t feel the bastard’s knuckles connect with his face, the force of the impact sending him stumbling backward. 

For a second the pain was nearly overwhelming, sharp and blinding as it exploded behind his eyes, the coppery tang of blood spreading on his tongue.

But then a wave of fury bubbled up in his chest and Jensen swung back, his own fist connecting painfully with the guy’s chin. 

Next thing he knew, they were rolling around on the floor in a tangle of limbs and throwing blind punches at each other while the crowd yelled at them from the side.

In the end, it took both Steve and Chris to drag him off the guy.

Jensen’s head was pounding from a particularly vicious blow he’d taken to the temple, his ears were ringing from the sound of his own blood rushing through his body and his mouth and teeth were coated a dark shade of crimson.

“Got my fucking _lipstick_ after all,” He spat out a glob of blood-flecked saliva onto the guy’s motionless form on the ground and the whole crowd broke out into roaring cheers.

 

 

Jared had tried to keep his distance from Jensen.

He honestly had.

But it was kind of hard when the kid had nothing better to do but to get into a fucking fist fight with one of their regulars at the shop.

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Jared’s heart was in his throat, his voice coming out in a low growl.

He was white-knuckling the cell phone in one hand while pocketing his wallet and keys with the other. “Is he alright? What happened?”

_“Little banged up’s all. Man, you should have fucking seen him, Jay. He went ballistic on that bastard’s ass. Never thought the kid had it in him.”_

“What the fuck did the guy say to him?” Jared grit out because there was absolutely no way Jensen would have attacked one of their customers without reason.

_“Maybe Jenny should tell you that himself. Just get your lazy ass here, alright? Kid’s been asking for you a couple of times... said some shit about you not picking up the phone.”_

Oh well, wasn’t that fucking great?

The irony was almost too much to handle.

Here Jared was, thinking he would do the kid a favor by giving them both space and the one time he wasn’t at Jensen’s side to watch his fucking back, the guy managed to get himself punched in the face by some aggressive asshole.

“I’m on my way. Clean the wound and stop the bleeding, alright?”

“ _Got it,”_ Chris hung up the line and Jared squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his temples.

“What happened?” Jeff looked like death-warmed-over, ghostly pale and with blood-shot eyes as he regarded Jared carefully, trying to gauge the seriousness of the situation.

Jared bit his lower lip. “There was a brawl at the shop. I’m gonna head over there, check if everyone’s alright.”

Jeff nodded somberly, not even looking surprised. Maybe he didn’t have the energy to get angry over what happened. After the shitload of alcohol he’d drunk the night before, Jared wasn’t surprised. Guy was bound to have the mother of all hangovers.

“It’s raining. Wanna take my truck?”

Jared looked outside and cursed under his breath.

Heavy raindrops were battering the roof and streets like a hail of bullets, causing shallow puddles to spit and hiss aggressively on the glistening roads as cars passed them by.

Not the best kind of weather for a spin, but Jared had grown used to the merciless Boston torrents a long time ago and the bike would get him there faster.

“I’m good. Go get some food in you, or something. You look like shit.”

“Jared, wait,” Jeff grabbed him by the arm, holding him in place and meeting his gaze with an intense stare of his own. “What I said last night about Jensen...“

“It’s okay,” Jared tried to shake him off, not wanting to reconstruct the conversation that had kept him up all night, the daunting words that had twisted his stomach into dreadful knots and caused him to ignore all of Jensen’s messages and calls this morning.

But Jeff held on tight, his gaze never wavering. “No, it’s not. You deserve your own shot at happiness, Jay. I just don’t want you to get hurt in the process.”

Jared swallowed, before yanking his arm free from Jeff’s grasped. “It’s not like I’m gonna marry the guy, alright? Christ, he’s just another—”

“Just another what?” Jeff broke him off. “Another meaningless fling? Another kid to fuck and never call again?”

Jared clenched his teeth, jaw muscle twitching and eyes flashing with calm fury.

“Jensen’s not that and you fucking know it,” Jeff insisted and then instantly fell quiet again, hand reaching up to wash over his tired face. 

Jared’s gaze dropped to the floor, throat working. He didn’t want to acknowledge Jeff’s words, didn’t want to think about the fact that Jensen already meant more to him than any of his previous lovers combined.

Didn’t want to admit the knee-weakening flutter of happiness he felt every time he looked into Jensen’s rainforest-colored eyes or the way his heart skipped a beat every goddamn time the kid flashed him one of his smiles.

Because admitting that would come too fucking close to admitting that he was actually starting to have feelings for Jensen and that couldn’t be true.

Jared’s heart had wilted and died the day his mother had been brutally murdered in front of his eyes.

He hadn’t truly opened himself up to anyone since the day he had cradled her bleeding corpse in his too little hands, tears streaming incessantly down his blood-splattered cheeks.

Jared was broken somewhere deep down inside.

He wasn’t relationship material.

And he would _never_ be what Jensen deserved.

“I’m heading out,” Jared swallowed, effectively breaking the moment. “Get some rest.”

 

 

“Oh my fucking god!” Katie squealed, practically tackling Jensen to the ground in her overly enthusiastic attempt to hug him. “The shit you just pulled out there? I honestly didn't think you could get any hotter but I was wrong. So fucking wrong.”

“Who knew you could pack a punch like that?” Chris chimed in with an amicable clap to Jensen’s shoulder. “Gotta say, that was pretty impressive for a scrawny college boy like yourself.”

Jensen flipped Chris off with a soft chuckle and then winced when Katie’s arm brushed a sore spot on his side from where the guy’s steel-capped boots had landed a solid kick to his ribs.

He hadn’t felt this wrecked in a very long time and that was really saying something considering how often he got banged up at practice.

His heart was still jackhammering in his chest, every fucking fiber of his being tingling with a strange sense of awareness, the strange feeling of being alive.

“Looks like that lip’s busted, man,” Chris dug out a small first-aid kit from the cabinet and Jensen probed at the shallow incision there with his tongue.

It was a small cut, nothing a butterfly Band-Aid couldn’t fix.

“I’m fine. No need to break out the needle and dental floss,” Jensen gave his medical verdict.

“You’re the doctor, man,” Chris snorted before dabbing a cotton ball in something that looked suspiciously like Vodka and pressing it against the small wound.

Jensen winced a little at the sting when Steve poked his head through the doorway. “You good? That was one hell of a show you just pulled out there.”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jensen wiped the trickle of blood from his lips with the back of his hand before giving them all a shaky smile in reassurance. “Sorry for driving your customers away. I’m not usually this short-tempered but after what he said—“

Jensen had never been a big fan of physical confrontations, had always been taught that words were better solutions than letting your fists fly. But he also knew how to throw a right hook when necessary.

“Are you kidding me?” Katie spat out, blue eyes flashing. “The guy deserved everything you dished out and more. I would have kicked his ass if you hadn’t done it yourself.”

“She’s right,” Steve agreed, clapping Jensen’s shoulder. “That fucker’s lucky he’s still breathing after what he said to you. Nobody gets to talk to us this way and walk away from it.”

 _Us._ Jensen felt an odd warmth pool in the bottom of his stomach at the way Steve seemed to consider him a part of their group. His throat was closing up at the deliberate choice of words.

Somehow, without him even realizing it, he had apparently become one of them, an actual friend instead of the proverbial ‘flavor of the week’.

And with the way the crew beamed at him and patted his back, there was no doubt in his mind that he’d just passed the unofficial inauguration process to get accepted as one of their own, as part of the  _family_.

“I think this calls for a celebration, Jenny boy!” Chris clapped his hands together and Steve produced a bottle of Tequila out of thin air.

Katie cheered and Chase grabbed a box filled with dusty shot glasses from a counter nearby.

“To our Harvard boy who just knocked his first asshole on his ass!” Chris raised his glass and Jensen laughed a little, letting his head drop forward in mild embarrassment. 

“They grow up too fucking fast,” Ty chimed in from the side, dirty rag slung casually over his bare shoulder as he grabbed a shot glass himself and drained it in one go.

“We should start recruiting you guys or something,” Steve laughed and Jensen felt himself relax at the sound and sight of these people around him. The comfortable sense of community filling his mind and soul as they shot jibes back and forth between each other.

“You don’t even know how to spell ‘recruit’,” Jensen teased before chasing the taste of blood from his tongue with a shot of Tequila.

Steve tossed a slice of orange at his face and they all started laughing.

 

 

When Jared arrived at the store, all the customers had left and the sound of cheers and laughter were filtering to him from the back office.

He strode through the door without announcing himself and then froze at the sight of Jensen’s busted face.

Blue and purple bruises had started to blossom on the freckled skin around Jensen’s left eye socket and the way he was cradling his side, arm loosely wrapped around his ribs in a protective gesture, told Jared all there was to know about the extent of his injuries.

“Shit, Jensen,” he breathed out and everyone fell silent upon noticing his presence.

Jared made a straight line for Jensen, hands instinctively reaching up to cradle the blonde’s bruised face. “The fuck were you thinking?”

Worry made his voice sharper than usually and Jensen flinched at a little at the words, not having expected Jared to react this strongly. “Look, I’m sorry if I messed with one of your regulars. I didn’t mean to ruin your business or cause a scene.”

“That's not what this is about.” 

“Alright, kids,“ Chris cut in from the side. “I think it’s time for us to call it a night. Give these two lovebirds some privacy.”

The rest of the crew left the back office with mumbled goodbyes and reassuring pats on the back of Jensen’s back.

Then it was just Jared and him.

“You think money's the fucking issue, here? I would have killed the bastard on the spot if I’d heard him and you better believe it.”

Jensen’s mouth dried up, his heart hammering wildly in his chest at the breathtaking intensity of the stare Jared fixated him with. “Then why are you giving me shit for this? I was just defending myself.”

“Because these guys are bikers, Jensen! They aren’t just your average jock from the rivaling lacrosse team or whoever else you’ve ever faced in a fight before. These assholes hold grudges, okay? You think some narcissistic douchebag like Seth’s just gonna take your blows and be done with it?”

 _Seth._ So that was the guy’s name.

Jensen hadn’t even considered that his little brawl could have serious consequences. That a guy like Seth probably wouldn’t deal well with getting his ass handed to him by a college student half his fucking size in front of a whole store full of bikers.

“You think he would…” he swallowed, not wanting to imagine what ‘Seth’ could have planned in retaliation.

“Ambush you?” Jared sighed, feeling exhausted and way too fucking tired to be having this conversation. “No. He probably knows it would be the last fucking thing he ever tried, but you gotta be more careful than this.”

Jensen pressed his lips together and nodded.

He looked disheveled and bruised and fucking vulnerable with his face all marked up and dried flakes of blood still sticking to his face. And Jared couldn’t bear the sight of it.

“When Chris called me earlier to tell me what happened, I—” he broke himself off for a moment, struggling to find the right words. “It scared the living shit out of me, Jensen. For a second, I thought…”

“What?” Jensen asked, voice low and soft.

“I thought you’d gotten seriously hurt,” Jared confessed.

Jensen stared up at Jared from under his dark lashes, his brightly shining emerald eyes full of emotions Jared couldn’t decipher.

Jared let his fingers skim up along the sides of Jensen’s neck, thumb tracing the flutter of the younger man’s pulse with gentle pressure.

Then he leaned in, their noses bumping lightly together as they shared a breath in the barely-there gap between their lips.

Jensen closed his eyes, voice barely above a whisper. “Why didn’t you pick up the phone when I called you?”

Instead of answering, Jared cupped Jensen’s face and pressed their lips together. Jensen’s mouth opened willingly under the gentle persistence, lips immediately parting when Jared’s skilled tongue flicked over them in demand.

His palms instinctively found their way to Jensen’s waist, thumbs skirting the heated skin beneath his shirt.

A tiny noise caught in the back of Jensen’s throat when Jared angled his head to the side, deepening the kiss and chasing every last trace of tequila from the younger man’s mouth.

They didn’t come up for air until Jensen’s fingers clawed at Jared’s back, tightening in his shirt and holding on for dear life. They leaned back, just far enough to meet each other’s gaze, the only audible thing in the room being their heavy breathing.

“Trust me?” Jared placed a hand on his cheek, thumb lightly tracing the bone beneath the freckled skin.

Jensen’s flashing green eyes flickered from his lips to his eyes and back down again, his own plush mouth still parted and glistening obscenely in the relative dark of the office room.

“You know I do,” he said, looking dazed and half out of his mind from lack of air.

Jared swallowed, tightening his grip on Jensen’s wrist and feeling the flutter of his pulse beneath his fingertips.

He couldn’t stay away from Jensen and pretend they’d never met. But what he could do instead was preparing Jensen for what was to come, making sure he knew how to take care of himself.

Maybe their training just needed to get a little more _extensive_.

“Tomorrow morning,” Jared exhaled softly. “I want you to come to the junkyard at Brighton.”

“Brighton Street?” Jensen’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Why?”

“Just be there, okay?”

 

 

The next day, with his head pounding from too much fucking Tequila and the blows he had taken during the brawl, Jensen couldn’t for the life of him remember why he had agreed to meet Jared at some run-down scrapyard at six-thirty in the morning.

The place Jared had chosen for their meet-up was in a shitty neighborhood in South Boston, not the kind of place Jensen would usually visit all by himself at night, or in the afternoon, or at any given day of the time, really.

And yet he was here, standing in the cool morning breeze in nothing but a hoodie and jeans and holding on to the steaming hot cup of Starbucks coffee in his hands.

He watched the sun go up between the derelict cars and chunks of old metal behind twirling wafts of steam, not thinking about anything when the tell-tale rattle of Jared’s machine approached the scrapyard.

He didn’t manage to take his eyes off the first orange hued rays of sunrise until he felt strong arms snake around him from behind and the hint of stubble brushed up against the side of his neck. “How’s the head, gorgeous?”

Jensen closed his eyes, basking silently in the smell of strong coffee and Jared’s aftershave. “A lot better than yours is gonna feel if you don’t tell me what the hell we’re doing here so early in the morning.”

He wasn’t a morning person, had always hated it when somebody bereft him of his precious sleep and Jared was no exception to that rule.

Jared stepped around him, looking perfectly fucking comfortable in his ripped jeans and the black button-down, for once covering the beautiful ink that grazed the skin beneath. 

He held something out in his right hand and it took Jensen a moment to realize what he was looking at. The silver glinting in the gloomy morning air; dull orange hue of sun rays reflecting from the shiny metal.

It was a semi.

Jared was holding it by the barrel, waiting for him to pick it up and everything inside of Jensen went dangerously still at the sight, heart ceasing to beat in his chest. “What’s that?”

Jared cocked an eyebrow at him, a lazy grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I’d say it’s a gun.”

Fucking smartass.

“Yeah, I can tell it's a fucking gun, Jared. What am I supposed to do with it?”

“It’s yours,” Jared said, pressing it against Jensen’s chest. “I’m gonna teach you to shoot it.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” the protest had left Jensen’s lips before he had even really thought about it.

He was willing to do a lot of shit for Jared, but this was taking things a little too far for his liking.

“No?” Jared raised his eyebrows in surprise, a low, dangerous quality to his tone that spoke of the fact that he wasn’t used to getting no for an answer.

“No.”

It was part of the gang life and Jensen understood that. He just didn’t want anything to do with it himself.  

Jared locked his jaw, eyes growing hard and lips thinning out into a set line. “It’s not like I expect you to run around guns blazing, alright? I just want you to know how to defend yourself if it ever comes to that.”

“If it comes to _what_ , exactly?” Jensen gave him a hard look, eyes sparking fury. “Me having to shoot someone in the heart, Jared? Is that what we’re talking about here? Cause I don’t want any part in that.”

“Well, tough luck,” Jared spat out viciously. “You already are a fucking part of it, Jensen!”

He was breathing heavily, nostrils flaring and every trace of peaceful serenity was suddenly gone.

“The Reapers have been shadowing us for the past couple of weeks. Steve spotted one of them on his way to the shop last night and Jeff told me he saw two of them patrolling our neighborhood. I’m pretty sure they’ve got someone on your case, too.”

“Wait, what?” Jensen felt like he was going to be sick, cold sweat breaking out on his neck. Was Jared saying these bastards had followed him to his home- that they might have been watching him for the past two weeks without him even noticing?

“Are you telling me they think I’m part of your gang or something? That they know where I live? Where my friends live?”

Jared licked his bottom lip, gaze dropping to the floor and coming from him that was as good as a signed confession.

“Look, I can’t say for sure what they’re planning, but the fact that they haven’t done anything yet is suspicious. I just want to make sure that in case anything happens, you’re gonna be—“

“That I’m gonna be what, Jared?” Jensen asked in a clipped tone, mind still reeling with the fact that he’d most likely been stalked by a bunch of criminals. “Prepared to kill someone? Cause I can damn well guarantee you that will never be the case. Ever.”

There was an intense moment of silence with both of them just staring at each other, their chests rising and falling in perfect symmetry.

Jared wasn’t looking at him as much as _through_ him, like Jensen’s head was transparent and all his thoughts and emotions laid bare in front of him.

“I won’t let it come to that,” he promised with a deep heaviness to his voice, an intensity to his words that made Jensen shiver. “This is nothing but a fucking precaution, you hear me? Dry-practice, just like we did when I showed you how to ride a bike. Now look me in the eyes and tell me you can do this, Jensen… I _need_ you to do this.”

Jensen blinked, his irises fixated on Jared as if his brain was suffering from some kind of short-circuit and struggling to understand what was being asked of him.

Then Jared reached out to touch the side of his cheek, thumb gently tracing the slightly swollen flesh around his eye socket before tilting his head upwards by the chin. “It’s gonna be fine.”

Jensen nodded, his resolve crumbling. 

“C’mon,” Jared grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him off towards a sketchy looking building. He typed some kind of code into the security panel and pushed the gate open, granting them entrance.

Jensen flinched when the lights flickered to life, illuminating a huge shooting range with glass boxes and lanes and paper targets like you’d see them on TV.

His heart thundered nervously in his chest as Jared pulled him along, settling in one of the glass office boxes and handing Jensen the pistol.

“A few general rules before we get started,” Jared said, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up in preparation.  A pair of ear protectors and a stack of ammunition was lying on the small glass counter in front of them.

“Never point your gun at anybody unless you want to shoot them,” Jared instructed, eyes never wavering from Jensen’s. “Never handle a gun unless you’ve checked to see whether it’s loaded and always make sure to keep your fingers off the slide or hammer before firing.”

Jensen nodded, his fingers shaking as he wrapped them around the unfamiliar chunk of metal.

He played with the weight in his hands, balancing it precariously, half-afraid it was going to go off just from that simple touch.  

Jared nodded down at the gun. “That’s a small-caliber Mag, .22. It’s practically childproof, so it should be good for getting you started.”

Jensen frowned, unsure if he should be reassured or insulted. 

“You should always make sure the chambers are empty before loading a new round,” Jared grabbed an untouched clip from the counter and shoved it into the gun with a skilled flick of his wrist.

Then he sidled up to Jensen from behind, close enough for Jensen to smell sandalwood, a hint of roasted coffee beans and something else that was entirely Jared.

The scent was heavy and addictive, making him weak in the knees.

“Now for your posture—“ Jared’s voice reverberated through Jensen’s chest, his breath hot on the side of his sweaty neck.

He looped his arms around Jensen’s waist from behind and covered the younger man’s shaking fingers with his own to adjust his grip.

“Your dominant hand is the one that fires, the other one lends stability. Your grip should be firm but not too tight. If you hold it too tightly, the gun ends up shaking, which means your shot will go haywire. You got all of that, so far?”

Jensen allowed himself to close his eyes for a second, letting the smell and sound and feel of Jared surround him like a blanket and cloaking the spark of panic in his chest.

A tremor shook his frame but he managed a weak nod in response. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Okay. Release the slide.”

Jensen pulled it back with a metallic click.

He was eerily aware of the rock solid muscle pressed against his spine, of the slow thump-thump of Jared’s heart against his shoulder blade, the way his crotch was pressed firmly against the curve of his ass, their fingers sliding together in a tangle of sweat and nervous heat. It was all just _this_ side of pornographic and Jensen would have loved nothing more than to push back against Jared’s denim covered groin against that scolding heat, that delicious friction if it wasn’t for the loaded firearm in his hands.

“Widen your stance,” Jared husked and Jensen could tell he was feeling it too, would have probably loved nothing more than to press him up against that bulletproof glass and fuck him within an inch of his life.

“I said widen your stance,” Jared kicked his feet apart, holding him up when his knees threatened to buckle. Jensen let out a shocked little breath and Jared pressed his lips against his ear. “Feet at shoulder width, knees slightly bent. Arms straight and in line with the handgun.” His voice was nothing but a low murmur, carried across the delicate skin on Jensen’s throat. “You’re too tense. Try to relax.”

Jensen wanted to laugh at the words.

Try being relaxed when a muscle-packed giant like Jared was riding the cleft of your ass AND you were holding a loaded gun in your hands.

“I won’t be relaxed pointing a gun at an actual person,” he pointed out. “I won’t be relaxed _out there_.”

“You aren’t out there. You’re here with me, just the two of us and a gun.”

Jensen snorted. “Could be the name of our first sex tape.”

“That’s cute,” Jared huffed out, tightening his hold on Jensen’s fingers to a point where it was almost painful. “Like I’d let anyone look at you all spread out beneath me and begging to get fucked.”

Jensen groaned in response, a surge of heat pulsing through him at the words. The image they painted in his mind had him squirming awkwardly against Jared, dick stirring with interest in his jeans.  “Not fair.”

“You started this,” Jared gave back with a chuckle before getting back on topic. “Now drop your shoulders and take a deep breath, try to focus on the beat of your heart.”

Jensen’s shoulders fell a fraction of an inch, but his whole body was still coiled with tension. “This is the most relaxed I'm gonna get.”

“You shoot like this, there’s no goddamn sense in shooting at all.”

Jensen pressed his lips together and forced his heartbeat to slow down, focusing on the steady thrumming of Jared’s heart instead of his own.

And then, just as his own breath had started slowing down, his grip getting steadier on the gun’s handle until the weight felt almost natural, Jared was suddenly gone from his back and he was standing there all by himself.

There was no need for instructions, no need for Jared to tell him to fire.

Jensen sighted down the barrel of the gun, letting all his fears and concerns fall off his shoulders as he aimed and pulled the trigger.

Four rapid shots in quick succession and Jensen was a shaking mess, ears ringing as he lowered the weapon with trembling hands.

The air filled with the scent of gunpowder and Jared whistled low under his breath, hitting a button and sending the target flying towards their glass box.

Jared met Jensen’s gaze over the target, looking mildly impressed. “Not bad for a start.”

Jensen had made three hits, two solid shots to the chest and one to the dead center of the paper, the bullet hole glaring back at him almost accusingly.

The sight made him shiver. 

If an actual person got struck point blank in the dead center of their chest, the bullet would shatter the breastbone into countless shrapnel, sharp pieces, fanning out towards all important vessels and life, supplying organs.

The cavitation shockwave would destroy all tissue within a three-inch radius of the trajectory.

The heart would rupture, even if not hit directly and pick up a dangerous rate higher than 150 beats per minute. Then the heart’s contractions would then lead to severe internal hemorrhaging and blood would fill the victim’s airways and esophagus. 

Four minutes, maybe five of agonizing pain and it would all be over, the damage irreversible.

Jensen swallowed convulsively.

He felt like he was going to be sick.

“Are we done with the shooting lesson?” he ejected the magazine and shoved the gun back at Jared with a blank expression on his face. “Cause I’ve got classes to get to at school.”

Jared’s expression sobered up as he noticed the look in Jensen’s eyes. “Yeah, we’re done.”

“Am I gonna need you as a chaperone now or should I keep the gun with me _just in case_?”

Jared sighed, looking away. He had thought the nervous tension would ease after Jensen had fired his first round of shots but somehow the practice seemed to have made everything worse.

“Like I said, you won’t need this. It’s a useful thing to know. That's all.”

“Useful to know?” Jensen repeated incredulously, laughing a bit at the irony of the situation. “Five days a week I’m studying how to preserve human life, Jared. I’m standing in an OR, watching surgeons who try to stitch a gunshot victim back together after someone had pumped them full of lead,  _that's_ useful to know. And now you expect me to be the one wielding a fucking gun in someone's face?”

“Why not?” Jared shot back, visibly riled up himself. “How is this any different from the way you defended yourself last night at the store?”

“Because I didn’t point a gun at someone and pull the fucking trigger, okay? There’s a difference between setting someone straight and snuffing their lights out, Jay! How am I even explaining this to you?”

“And what if he’d pulled a gun? What would you have done, Jensen? What if he’d had a gun to Katie’s forehead or Chris’ or hell, _mine_?” Jared paused, eyes wide and intense as he glared at Jensen. “Would you still hold onto your noble intentions if it’s a choice between them and someone you care about?”

Jensen didn’t realize he had stopped breathing until his lungs gave a painful tug inside his chest.

He felt overwhelmed.

His vision was blurred when he ran a hand over his face and stumbled out of the glass box in a hurry.

He needed to get out of there.

This was all just- it was all going so _fast_.

He felt like things were spinning out of control.

“I need to get some fresh air,” Jensen said, easing himself out of the glass box despite Jared’s attempts at holding him back.

“Jensen, wait— just  _listen_ to me, okay?”

“I think I’ve heard enough,” he murmured, voice carried away by the wind as he stormed out of the shooting range and a wave of fresh air hit him like a slap in the face.

 

 

Jensen’s forehead was pressed against their window, a thick brown quilt draped comfortably around his shoulders as he stared out of the glass into the Harvard grounds and watched students pass by in a hurry.

He was holding a steaming cup of tea in his too cold fingers, watching the smoke curl in the air and fog up the window beside him, small pearls of condensation running along the smooth surface.

To an outsider, it would have probably looked like he was relaxing, shutting off his brain after a particularly stressful day.

But his mind was racing with thoughts about a comatose stranger whose girlfriend was planning to abort her unborn child and an outlaw biker gang that was most probably planning to ambush him for crimes he hadn’t committed. And with the tall, handsome biker who had introduced him to the biker life, blinding smile and gentle hands, giving Jensen the mother of all blowjobs one night and then forcing him to fire a fully loaded semi at a paper target the next.

“Hey,” a low voice carried over to him from the doorway and Jensen blinked languidly at the soft timbre of the word. _Mike_ , he knew without looking.

There was something about the way Mike talked that had always fascinated Jensen to a point where it was mesmerizing him.

Maybe it was the way he played with intonations and rolled foreign words of his lips as if it were nothing or maybe it was gentle persistence and meaningfulness of his words.

Jensen could listen to Mike for hours, had always enjoyed the man’s calming presence, the bone-deep equilibrium in his attire and attitude.

Jensen lifted his head from the fogged window glass and turned around. “Hey, where’s Tom?”

These two usually never strayed far from one another’s side.

“Still in class, as far as I know. What about yourself? Shouldn’t you still be in biochem?”

They knew each other’s schedules by heart.

“We had an exam. I finished early,” Jensen rubbed the back of his neck, shrugging a little.

He had perfunctorily paged through the book a few times before the test and still managed to finish before everyone else in his class.

The lecturer had seen no point in keeping him there.

“Of course, you did,” there was an audible note of pride in Mike’s voice when he grabbed a half-finished portion of quinoa from the fridge and hastily shoveled a forkful into his mouth.

He was always in a rush these days, either on his way to class or to one of his current jobs, every bit the successful business man he was striving to be.

And then, just as he was about to wash down his food with a sip of water, Mike’s startling gray eyes connected with Jensen’s across the room and the bowl of salad nearly slipped from his long fingers.

He sputtered and coughed, dumping his glass of water in the sink as his eyes widened.

“What happened to you?” the older man demanded, looking appalled by the sight of Jensen’s bruised face. “Who the fuck did this? Was it Matt? I’ll send his abusive ass to prison so fast he’ll set a land speed record if he touched you, I swear to god—“

“No Mike, listen to me. Matt had nothing to do with this,” Jensen grabbed Mike by the shoulders, making sure to meet the other man’s eyes. “I got into a fight with some asshole at the bike store… he… he was talking shit about me and I taught him a lesson. That’s all.”

Mike’s eyes widened at the news, brows shooting up to his hairline. "You got into a full-fledged fist fight with someone at the bike store?”

Jensen rubbed the back of his neck with a tired wince. “Yeah. I know, sounds crazy, huh? I guess I just kind of lost it for a second.”

“What did he say to you?” Mike frowned, still looking skeptical.

“How does it matter, Mike? He was being an asshole and I dealt with it,” Jensen tried to shrug it off, but Mike wasn’t letting him off the hook so easily.

“Jensen…” Mike sighed. “This isn’t like you, all right? I’m starting to get worried here. I mean first you miss your exam, then you get strange visits from young women in the middle of the night and now this? What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Jensen felt his throat tighten painfully around the lie. “I’m fine.”

It wasn’t Jared or the gang Jensen was afraid of. It was the dangerous lifestyle, the guns, the bikes, the boundless alcohol and drugs and criminal activities.

He was afraid _for_ them, afraid of losing them.

And above all else, he was afraid of himself, of the way his heart kept doing flips whenever Jared’s name had flashed on the screen of his cell phone, at the pool of warmth that grew in his belly every time their eyes met in a tangle of heat and desire.

He was afraid that for the first time in his life, his heart’s desire was outweighing his own rationality.

“Don’t lie to me, man,” Mike sighed, lips curling up into a knowing little smile. “What’s bothering you?”

Jensen blinked, feeling the wetness in his gaze. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other and felt his resolve wither and die beneath the steady gaze of his concerned friend.

“I think I might be... shit Mike, I think I'm... _I'm in love_ ,” he finally rasped out, hurried and breathless like the shameful admission that it was. He looked down at his shoes, unable to meet Mike’s judging gaze.

“In love with Jared?” Mike asked softly, his tone void of blame or pity, just understanding… _gentle_.

Jensen didn’t think an answer was necessary, so he let the silence speak for itself.

“And that scares you?”

Jensen bit his lower lip and nodded because he couldn’t actually say what he was thinking out loud.

Couldn't say how loving Jared was changing him. How dangerous it was.

Dangerous to a point where it could get him _killed_.

So yeah, it scared him.

He was out of his mind with fear.

Mike’s palm landed heavy on the back of his neck. “Love can be scary sometimes. It can be downright _terrifying_ , but that doesn’t mean we should run away from it. Some things... they're just worth fighting for, Jensen.”

At that, Jensen looked up; eyes wide and glistening and Mike squeezed his neck in reassurance like he knew _exactly_ what was going on in Jensen’s mind.

“You think so?” he asked in a broken whisper and Mike smiled, calm and comforting.

“I know it for a fact.”

 

 

Jared was sitting in the back office, legs propped up on the desk as he worked on the statement of account for October when Chase came through the doorway holding a steaming mug of coffee in his hands.

“You look like crap,” Chase commented, putting the coffee down on the table and turning Jared around in his office chair.

He was wearing dark Jeans that fit him in all the fucking right ways and a ripped T-shirt in bright blue that complimented his light-brown hair and the streaks of gold in his cat-like eyes.

“What do you want?” Jared asked irritably and then winced at the sharpness of his own tone. He hadn’t heard or seen from Jensen in nearly three days and the radio silence was starting to seriously fuck with his mind.

His thoughts just kept circling back to that day at the shooting range and what he’d done mess it all up.

“Aren’t you just a ray of fucking sunshine,” Chase snorted. “Who rained on your parade?”

“Nobody,” Jared groused, taking a sip of the coffee and nearly scalding his lips in the process. “Just give me some peace, alright? I’m trying to get work done here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Well,” Chase licked his lips, purposefully drawing attention to them like he knew that Jared had been running around with blue balls for the better part of four weeks. “I know a thing or two that could help you relax…”

Chase dropped both his hands down on Jared’s shoulders and massaged them for a moment, practiced fingers working over tense muscle before he purposefully trailing down lower on Jared’s chest and abdomen. “I could take some of that edge off before I let you get back to your numbers.”

Chase gently nipped at the hot skin on Jared’s neck, before turning the taller man around in his chair and gracefully sinking down to his knees, hands already reaching out for Jared’s belt buckle.

A month ago, the sight alone would have probably had Jared rock hard in a second flat, but not now.

Not with everything that was going on, all these thoughts and emotions swirling around inside of him.

“Look, I’m not in the fucking mood, alright?” Jared slammed his laptop shut on an angry exhale.

Chase frowned, cocking a skeptical eyebrow at him. “When are you ever not in the mood?”

“Today,” Jared shot back, eyes hard.

Chase just continued to gape at him, looking incredulous. “Sorry if I’m a little slow on the uptake, but just so we’re clear— did you just turn down a blowjob?”

Jared swallowed, looking out of the window and not offering up a response.

“I can’t fucking believe this shit,” Chase laughed a little but it was an ugly sound, practically bordering on hysteria. “Don’t tell me you’re so fucking hung up on this kid, you’re going monogamous for him. That’s more than a little pathetic, don’t you think?”

Jared felt himself bristling at the derision in Chase’s tone. He shot up from his chair, rising to his full six-foot-four frame in something that could only be expressed as an intimidating gesture and yanking Chase up from the ground by the collar of his shirt.

“I didn’t quite catch that. Tell me again how pathetic I am?” he grabbed Chase by the neck, thumb lingering over the slight dip of his throat, not strong enough to cut off his air supply, but still there like an unspoken threat. 

Chase’s hungry gaze dropped to Jared’s lips, his heartbeat wild beneath Jared’s fingertips.

He wasn’t afraid.

He was loving every second of this, he  _wanted_ this.

“Fuck me,” he rasped out, more of a plea than anything else and Jared tightened his hold ever so slightly, wrestling a small choking sound from the younger man’s lips in the process.

There was a beat of heavy silence, a predatory flicker of lust in his eyes. And the Jared backed Chase up against the table, slow and predatory, like a tiger closing in on prey.

“You wanna get fucked?” he growled before whirling him around and bending him over the edge of the desk so that his ass was sticking in the air and his groin was painfully pressed against the hard surface. “Wanna take my dick, Chase? Feel me for days? That what you fucking want?”

Chase’s response was to claw at Jared’s hips, trying to pull him closer. “Y-yeah… fuck yes, c’mon Jay. Fucking do it!” 

In the state he was in he would have probably agreed to pretty much anything Jared said.

And four weeks ago, Jared would have had him up on the nearest surface in a flash, fucking him until he was a sweaty, shivering, moaning mess.

Because there was a bone-deep satisfaction, a cleansing effect to just letting all your sorrows and worries and thoughts fall off your shoulders for a while and lose yourself in the sight and feel of another person.

And Jared wanted that, he wanted to _feel_ that, he just didn’t want it with Chase. Not anymore.

“I said I’m not in the fucking mood,” he growled, low and threatening before giving Chase a light jostle to the back of his neck and straightening up again. “Now get back to work.”

Chase was perfectly still for all but a second before he let out an angry growl and yanked himself off the table, his face a vicious grimace. “Are you for fucking real right now?”

Jared locked his jaw. “Does it look like I’m joking?” 

Chase let out a stream of angry curses, readjusted himself in his jeans, face red with barely repressed fury. “Good luck screwing your new girlfriend then. Enjoy it while it fucking lasts."

He stomped off, slamming the door in his wake.

Jared watched him go, hands curled into fists by his side as he tried to calm his raging heart.

 

 

It was in the middle of the night when Jensen was ripped from a restless slumber.

Fumbling blindly for the phone on his nightstand, he flicked it open without looking at the display to see who was calling. “Yeah?”

“Jensen?” a female voice asked from the other end and for a terrifying second, Jensen thought it was Sandy, that maybe something was wrong with the baby.

In his sleep-muddled mind, he could already picture her pale frame slumped somewhere in a shady motel bedroom, with blood running down her thighs.

But the horrible image was thankfully driven from his mind the next second. “It’s Alona… sorry to call you in the middle of the night.”

“Al?” his voice was hoarse and raspy as he grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and flicked the lights on. His heart was beating wildly in his chest, palms growing sweaty with dread. “Everything alright? Is Chad okay?”

“That’s why I’m calling,” Alona said in a rushed voice and Jensen could picture her hurrying down the endless hallways of the hospital. “He woke up, Jensen. He opened his eyes and seemed responsive to stimuli. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Wow,“ Jensen let out a small laugh, suddenly feeling wide awake. Funny how much relief you could feel over the recovery of a complete stranger. “That’s great news, Al. Thanks for giving me the heads-up.”

Jared was going to be ecstatic.

And Sandy- maybe she and Chad still had a real shot at having a family, at being happy together.

“Don’t thank me too soon,” Alona scolded because they both knew better than to be prematurely optimistic in their line of work. “They haven’t done a brain scan yet, so it remains to see whether there will be lasting impacts.”

Jensen frowned. “Any idea where he is on the RLCF scale?”

Jensen could hear the smile in Alona’s voice when she answered. “Level 8 or 9 at the very least. He has a functioning long-term memory and is responsive to his environment.”

Jensen let out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“See you there,” she hung up the line and Jensen wasted no time before dialing Jared’s number.

It only rang twice before Jared answered. “Jen?”

Jensen bit his lower lip at the sound of the other man’s voice, longing washing through him at the sound.

God, how was it even possible to miss someone so damn much after only three days apart?

“How quickly can you be at St. Andrews?” Jensen smiled, shimmying into a pair of fresh jeans. “I’ve got good news for a change.”

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thank you for reading! Hope you're all still enjoying this! Please leave me a note if you can spare a minute of your time! :) <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* This chapter contains graphic violence, non-consensual drug abuse and (attempted) sexual abuse. There will be lots of swearing, too, but mostly violence.

** **

** **

**Open Road  
Chapter 12**

Chad’s eyes were the color of a clear sky on a cold winter morning.

They fixated Jensen as soon as he rushed through the hospital room, sucked the energy right out of his limbs and made him feel like he was being pulled down into the frigid torrent of a river.

“The fuck’re you?” Chad frowned, face pale against the white hospital linen.

He was propped up on a couple of pillows, hands ashen from where the fading sunlight caught them, not ghostly but subdued and grayish.

An IV was attached to his left arm, a clear bag above his head, liquid slowly dripping into his body.

Probably hypertonic saline, Jensen thought absentmindedly; the go-to treatment for coma patients.

He ran his eyes over Chad’s body, taking in the bony fingers and dark circles beneath his eyes.

Guy was athletic, but the coma had visibly taken its toll on him.

Jensen gulped a little, eyes skirting nervously through the room at the prospect of talking to this man whose accident had been the start of it all. 

The man whose ex-girlfriend had confided in Jensen about her plans to abort her unborn child.

So yeah, talking to Chad, even just facing him was odd. There were no words to explain everything that had happened since the day of his accident.

For a second, Jensen contemplated running, but he quickly dropped the idea again.

Leaving wasn’t really an option at this point, even if staying promised to become a slowly unfolding nightmare.

“You deaf or something?” Chad frowned a little at the stretch of silence that followed his earlier question. “Who’re you?”

“I’m…” Jensen swallowed. “A friend of Jared’s.”

Chad blinked at him slowly, like it took some time to process the words before a disbelieving smirk crossed his features.

“Yeah right,” he huffed out a small breath, bemused flicker in his eyes. “No offense, man, but Jared doesn’t have friends like you.”

The words stung.

Probably more so than they should have.

Chad hadn’t even meant to hurt him, he had simply stated what was on his mind, but Jensen knew the bitter truth that rested beneath the words. Because he didn’t look or act the part to even be in the realm of Jared’s acquaintances, much less his friends or lovers.

His light brown spikes were still sleep-tousled and he hadn’t bothered to throw on fancy clothes, standing there in just his jeans and a clean gray shirt, but there wasn’t a single tattoo on his skin and he didn’t have that rough edge about him that all bikers seemingly had.

He wasn’t part of the lifestyle, didn’t even remotely fit into their group and while Jensen had successfully ignored that fact for the past four weeks, Chad didn’t have any qualms reminding him of it.

“I uh… I kind of helped Jared out when they wouldn’t let him visit you. Interpreted some of your stats and stuff. Guess we kind of hit it off after that.”

Chad still looked skeptical but the deep frown marring his forehead smoothed out a little at Jensen’s words and some of the tension left his shoulders. “You a doctor or something?”

Jensen fiddled with the car keys in his hands. “No, I’m just a student. Jared and I met at the Grind’N’Gear on the day of your accident.”

Chad’s eyes flashed a little- as if the name of the biker fair brought a whole set of distant memories back from the deepest and darkest corners of his mind.

Jensen wondered whether Chad was suffering from some sort of retrograde amnesia. After all, it wasn’t uncommon for coma patients to encounter some sort of memory loss related to the head trauma they suffered.

He wanted to ask if Chad still remembered what had gone down that day on the highway, but he never got to utter his thoughts, when voices suddenly echoed through the hospital corridor outside the room.

Chad’s eyes widened in recognition and the sudden relief that flooded his features was a beautiful thing to watch.

A moment later, Jared was right there in the room with them, practically stumbling through the doorway.

He was panting, wide chest heaving for air and hair a wild mess, probably from riding his bike way too fast, but as soon as he spotted Chad on the hospital bed, eyes wide open and face gaunt from weeks of parenteral nutrition, Jared went completely still.

There was a moment of reverent silence, all of them holding their breath until Chad’s lips slowly curled into a lazy grin, the corners of his mouth trembling a little at the strain to his weakened muscles. 

“I know I’m gorgeous, but how about you quit staring and give me a fucking hug?”

Jared’s face crumbled, his steel resolve wilting and he took a quick stride forward to gruffly yank Chad against his chest in a heartfelt hug. “Fucking bastard. You don’t even fucking know—“

_How much I missed you._

_How scared I was of losing you._

Jared didn’t say any of it but Jensen heard it all the same, the words hanging unspoken in the air between them.

“It’s okay, man,” Chad squeezed his eyes shut, arms wrapping around Jared’s broad back as he returned the embrace with just as much enthusiasm. “I’m right here.”

“I thought—“

“I know. I’m sorry…”

Jensen watched the exchange through misty eyes, his own throat tight with emotion.

He felt oddly out of place, like he didn’t have the right to watch such a personal moment between two friends. Like Jared wouldn’t want for Jensen to see him in this state, to see him in a moment of weakness, even if Jensen would never consider it as such.

He was about to leave the room and give the two some privacy when the rest of the gang joined them, Chris and Katie poking their heads through the door and Steve nearly crashing into them when they suddenly stopped in the doorway.

“I can’t believe it,” Genevieve grinned and Jensen thought it was the first time he’d ever seen her smile. “It’s about fucking time you woke up, you lazy bastard.”

Jared still had his arms wrapped around Chad, clinging to the other man like he never wanted to let go, but Chad’s eyes were open, staring at his friends with a tired grin on his haggard features.

“Should we give you two pansies a moment to cry some more?” Chris joked and Chad gave him the finger. 

“Fuck you, Carlson,” he snorted, voice still a little shaky and hoarse from lack of use. “You’d be crying too if you just woke up from a fucking coma and the first face you see is Jared’s ugly mug.”

“Shut it,” Jared snorted, disentangling his long limbs from his friend’s.

“Fuck, it’s good to see you awake,” Chris strode forward and pulled Chad against his chest with one arm while Steve ruffled his hair and Katie jumped up on the hospital bed.

“How are you feeling? You remember anything?”

“Not all of it,” Chad sighed. “Doctor said some shit about my short-term memory being affected. I can’t remember what happened the day of the accident. It’s all just a huge, fuzzy mess.”

“It’s a slight retrograde amnesia,” Jensen supplied from the side and then bit his lower lip when six heads turned around to give him a look.

It was like they had all but forgotten about his presence in the wake of events, which was fine; Jensen really understood that a close friend’s awakening from a coma was higher on the list of priorities than introducing the new college boy side-kick.

“It’s also called post-traumatic amnesia because it usually only occurs in combination with severe head injuries. As a rule of thumb, it goes away again after some time, depending on the extent of the patient’s injuries and the length of the coma. I’d say in your case it shouldn’t last longer than a few weeks.”

Chad blinked at him, slowly as if to try and catch up with Jensen’s words. Then he apparently thought better of making his own judgment and Jared an incredulous look. “Tell me again how you guys met each other?”

“He’s Jared’s new toy, fresh from the factory,” Genevieve supplied with an icy smile and whatever ounce of sympathy Jensen had felt for her earlier went straight out of the window.

“He’s a friend,” Jared corrected, eyes narrowed at Genevieve’s jibe.

“Oh yeah, I forgot. _Fucking_ your friends is a specialty of yours.”

Jensen wanted for a hole to open up beneath his feet and swallow him.

Ten minutes into his first meeting with Chad and the guy already knew that things between him and Jared had gone beyond ‘casual friendship’ and into ‘not so casual’ territory. And more than that, Genevieve also had to rub salt in the wound by being a stone-cold bitch.

“Jensen’s been helping us out a lot these past few weeks, man. He’s good people,” Chris finally broke the tension-filled silence and Jensen felt a burst of warm gratitude towards the man.

“Dude, he broke Seth Donovan’s nose at the shop yesterday,” Steve added almost proudly.

“He what?” Chad’s eyebrows went flying to his hairline.

“Jensen’s with us,” Jared stated in a low tone, sending Jensen a meaningful look across the room. “He’s gonna stay with us for a while, help us with the bikes and get ready for the upcoming fair.”

Genevieve snorted, eyes flashing dangerously as she shot Jensen an angry scowl. “Yeah, he’s a regular cuckoo’s egg in the nest, isn't he? Playing substitute for Chad and all.”

“That’s _enough_ ,” Jared’s eyes were liquid fire. His voice didn’t leave room for discussion.

Gen withheld his fiery gaze like she’d done it a million times before.

“Aren’t you going to tell Chad about your little project with the boy?  The Black Lightning designed by a fucking rookie,“ she jutted out her chin towards Jensen. “Poor substitute if you ask me.”

“Nobody fucking asked you,” Jared snapped.

“Wait a second,” Chad held up a shaky palm, face a mixture of shock and disbelief. “You handed the Lightning over to this guy?” he pointed a finger towards Jensen.

Jared sighed. “You were in a coma, man. For all we knew, you could have stayed like this forever. And Jensen’s real fucking talented okay? It just kinda made sense to let him work one of our bikes over.”

“Are you for fucking real, Jay?” Chad exclaimed, betrayal shining from his eyes and Jensen kind of wished he had never agreed to work on the bike in the first place.

He never meant to play substitute for anyone. Hell, it wasn’t even like he’d meant to get this involved with the gang. If he had known Chad was going to wake up so soon after his accident, he wouldn’t even have contemplated taking Jared up on his offer.

“Look, I really didn’t mean to interfere,“ he started, trying to step back from the project, trying to give the reigns back to the man who obviously had some kind of emotional attachment to the vintage bike and probably knew a whole lot more about designing motorcycles than Jensen did. “You’re the professional here and if this is important to you, I will find something else to work on—“

“Like hell, you will,” Jared cut him off, eyes hard and unyielding. “You’re already too involved in the project to stop now. Besides, it’s not like Chad’s ready to get back to work anytime soon. He’ll need to focus on his recovery right now and he can’t fucking do that if he’s stressing about the Lightning.”

Chad glowered at Jared. “I can talk for my fucking self, you know?”

“Look, I’m sorry, alright?” Jared’s voice was low and calm. “But you’re not ready to work on anything right now. And Jensen’s already drawn up some drafts, he’ll do her justice.”

Chad snorted. He wasn’t meeting anyone’s gaze, visibly distraught at the news and the rest of the gang looked kind of uncomfortable in the wake of the discussion, everyone except for Genevieve, who had a satisfied little smirk on her lips.

Jensen kind of wanted to slap her.

He swallowed down his anger and took a step towards the hospital bed. “Look, Chad… It honestly isn’t that big of a deal. I mean, I’ve started drawing up some basic drafts, but that’s it. Nothing’s set in stone here, so if the bike’s this important to you, I’m sure I can—“

“No, Jared’s right,” Chad broke him off softly, deflating a little against the hospital bed, the fight having bereft him of his very last energy reserves. “I’m not well enough to get back to work and it’s probably gonna take me a while. Guess it only makes sense for someone else to take over. It’s just, the Lightning, she’s special. Did Jared tell you about—“

“Yeah he did,” Jensen smiled loosely, digging his hands into the pockets of his jacket and pursing his lips. “Vincent Black Lightning, 1952. She’s a legacy among bikers, real rare, too, gets up to 200 at top speed and is one of the most sought-after vintage bikes to date.”

Chad glanced over at Jared then back at Jensen. “You really did your homework, didn’t you?”

“He’s a freak,” Steve laughed. “You wouldn’t wanna know how much shit he remembers.”

“Yeah, but that’s to be expected of a fucking Harvard student,” Katie swatted at Steve’s head and then chuckled when he actually flinched back from her blows.

“You trying to tell me I’ve been replaced by some fucking Ivy League college kid?” Chad looked genuinely offended. “I leave you alone for four fucking weeks and that’s the best you idiots come up with?”

Jensen felt himself relax a little, all of the earlier tension suddenly drained from his shoulders. This was something he could work with, the offensive jokes and crude commentary have long since become part of his daily routine.

Jared edged closer from the side until they were standing next to each other, their eyes meeting while the rest of the gang continued to laugh and throw jibes around between each other. “Go for a smoke?”

Jensen bit the insides of his cheeks, fingers twitching inside his jacket pockets. “Yeah.”

Jared turned towards the hospital bed. “Be back in five.”

Chad chucked a pillow at them as they turned towards the door. “Yeah, yeah, leave a fucking dying man alone, you sly dog. At least, I know that there are some things that never change.”

Jared flipped him the finger before leaving the room but there was a heartfelt smile on his lips and a warm shine in his eyes and Jensen decided that Chad wasn’t half bad of a person.

 

 

Jared had two cigarettes lit the second they stepped outside and handed one of them over to Jensen. “So… Chad.”

Jensen took a deep drag and nodded, not really sure what he was supposed to say to that.

“Thanks for calling me.”

Jensen watched the smoke as it curled in the air between them, slowly unfurling and painting distorted art into the air. “Of course.”

“Chad isn’t pissed at you personally, he’s just… it’s hard for him to give the project up.”

“I get it,” Jensen licked his lower lip, purposefully keeping his gaze averted. He wasn’t sure he could look up into Jared’s whisky-colored eyes without getting lost in them forever, so he stared at the cracks in the dirty tarmac instead.

Until Jared stepped up and lifted his chin that was, just like he’d done so many times before.

“I…” he hesitated and bowed his head forward, a slight flush coloring his cheeks. “Fuck, Jensen I…”

He looked genuinely nervous. Like he was afraid to say something stupid or make a wrong move. And there was something oddly empowering about causing someone like Jared to lose his cool. It did all kind of things to Jensen.

Taking another deep drag of his cigarette, Jensen dropped it to the ground and stomped it out.

He reached up to grasp either side of Jared’s face with his cold palms, pulled him close to slot their lips together and slowly exhaled a lungful of smoke into Jared’s mouth.

Jared’s large palms settled on his waist as he inhaled deeply, sucking the residual smoke from Jensen’s lungs and into his own.

They broke apart and Jared exhaled, the faint smell of tobacco filtering through the air as smoke slowly curled from his mouth and nose.

Jensen’s lips were tingling, his heart was racing. “Yeah, me too.”

 

 

“Tell me again why you aren’t wearing a costume on Halloween?” Misha demanded as they weaved their way through the heavily decorated campus grounds.

They dodged the fake cobwebs that were strung between the trees and continued down the scantily lit gravel path that led to the dorm rooms at the west wing of the campus.

Jack-o-lanterns in all shades and colors were lining the way, flames flickering orange through their cut out mouths and eyes.

The grass was still wet from the earlier downpour and gravestones and severed limbs were spread out randomly across the otherwise impeccable lawn.

“Counter question,” Jensen said. “Why does your costume force me to look at your naked ass for the better part of the night?”

Because while it was okay for Danni to jump around naked in their dorm, seeing Misha’s naked rear was definitely an experience Jensen could have done without.

“Are you seriously complaining about a free-of-charge peak at god-like perfection?” Misha flexed his muscles in an overt display of immaturity.

Jensen laughed, shaking his head a little because only Misha would leave his dorm room clad in nothing but a fucking box, to cover up his groin and nothing else.

“God-like-perfection my ass,” Tom snorted from behind them. “You’re gonna get yourself arrested for public indecency.”

“And I’m gonna have to scorch my own eyes with a flamethrower after tonight,” Danneel cut in from the side, wearing her mom’s hippie dress and a very impressive collection of feathers around her neck and arms. Her reddish-brown hair was braided and a tinted pair of heart-shaped sunglasses completed her hippie look.

Tom was going as Albert Einstein, his dark hair an explosion of hair spray and white color, while Mike was neatly pulling off Herman Munster, two screws sticking from his make-up covered neck and brown clothes hanging loosely off his chest and waist.

Jensen, who had never really gotten the hype around Halloween costumes, had made a spontaneous decision to join his friends for the campus party and hadn’t bothered to throw anything on himself.

From experience, he knew that there were always some people at every party who didn’t dress up, so it wasn’t like he was going to stick out.

Besides, Danneel had insisted on smearing some fake blood on his neck at the very least, which meant if anybody was asking he could still tell them he was a victim or something.

“What about Jared?” Danneel asked, bumping her elbow against his side. “You gonna meet him later or what?”

Jensen couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips. “Maybe. He said they were out at some kind of bar. Might as well join them later.”

Tom’s head snapped up at that. “What kind of bar? You can’t go out in that sleazy part of town, Jensen. Roxbury has one of the highest criminal rates of Boston. Somebody might cut your throat because you looked at them the wrong way.”

Tom wasn’t entirely wrong.

Jared’s neighborhood wasn’t the safest place to go for a couple of beers, but strangely enough, Jensen had never felt uneasy there with the gang around. They watched out for each other all the time and Jensen knew they would have his back if anything was to go wrong.

So yeah, when Jared had told him about their Halloween plans after they had parted ways at the hospital, Jensen wasn’t exactly adverse to the idea of them hanging out together.

He was just going to get his buzz on at the campus party, hang out with his friends, show his face for a little while and then take a cab to Roxbury.

They reached the dorm complex, loud party music already filtering out into the yard from the opened double-wing door and Jensen instantly recognized a few familiar faces among the students who were gathered around the entrance.

He shot a few perfunctory greetings into the round, bumping fists with Marcus from his organic chemistry class and exchanged a few words with Jess, who used to be his project partner in calculus.

“C’mon let’s go inside,” Danni slung an arm around Jensen from behind, pressing a peck against the side of his neck and dragging him along towards the door.

Soon they were deeply immersed in a tight crowd of colorful costumes and Halloween decorations.

The music was blaring so loud from the speakers it was nearly deafening and the beer was stale.

“Oh my god,” Danneel squeaked when she spotted Aaron Berger across the dance floor, the guy she’d been crushing on for the better part of the semester.

She had talked Jensen’s ear off about him, but Jensen had never actually seen the guy before.

“What, that guy?” he pointed a finger at a buff looking football-player-type at the other end of the room, who was currently laying it on thick with some girl in the traditional playboy bunny costume.

She must have been at least five years younger than him, definitely freshman but that didn’t keep the guy from ogling her boobs like a starving man would look at a rib eye.

“Seriously, Danni?” Jensen cocked a skeptical eyebrow at her because she honestly deserved better.

“What? He not ranking high on your gay-dar? I mean have you seen his muscles?”

Jensen laughed. The guy was fit, sure, but compared to Jared he was downright scrawny.

“I think I’ll pass.”

“What you’re only into ink and motor oil, now?” she winked at him before taking off towards the dance floor.

“Be careful!” Jensen called after her over the blaring music and then chuckled when she danced her way through the crowd. He only hoped she knew what she was getting herself into.

“Hypocritical much?” Tom appeared beside him and handed him another beer. He nodded towards the bar with a grim expression on his face. “Listen, I just spotted Matt on my way to the bathroom. Doesn’t look like he’s noticed you, yet. I sent Mike to distract him for a moment. You wanna bail?”

“Are you for real?” Jensen swore under his breath when Tom nodded. “I thought you said he hadn’t left his dorm in weeks!”

“He didn’t, okay? I don’t know what the hell he’s doing here. Maybe he thought you were gonna come or something. Now do you wanna get going or what?”

“No,” Jensen growled out with a frustrated little sigh. “I can’t run from him forever. This is starting to get ridiculous. I’m gonna head over and talk to him.”

Tom nodded, taking a sip from his own beer. “Want me to come along?”

“Dude, I don’t need a chaperone to talk to my ex,” Jensen scowled.

“Oh yeah?” Tom asked. “Cause I remember said ex, slamming you up against a wall not too long ago.”

“We’re in a room full of people, I highly doubt he would try anything in front of the whole student board.”

“Whatever you say,” Tom shrugged and Jensen weaved his way through the crowd, making eye contact with Mike to let him know he could drop the pretense. Mike gave Matt a terse smile before excusing himself and hurrying away to give them some alone time.

“Hey,” Jensen greeted somewhat awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.

Safe for the ghostly pallor of his skin and the bags under his eyes, Matt looked just like always. Tousled hair, just a shade too dark and eyes so bright it almost hurt to look at them.

“Hi,” Matt greeted, looking at Jensen with a deep sadness in his gaze. “I uh… I like your costume.”

The joke fell kind of flat, but Jensen appreciated the effort. “Yeah, thanks, I spent hours thinking of something,” he said sarcastically.

“I can tell, med student, right?” a weary smile tugged at Matt’s lips.

“Vampire victim,” Jensen pointed at the fake bite wound on his neck. “But pretty close.”

Matt laughed a little, some of the awkward tension lifted from his shoulders.

“I missed you,” the words left his lips in a rush and Jensen felt invisible fingers wrap around his insides and clench tight.

He looked away, suddenly uncomfortable.

He had been afraid of this, but maybe it was necessary to set his boundaries yet again. “Look, Matt…”

“I meant as _friends_. I missed us being friends, Jensen. Just hanging out like this, talking to each other,” Matt clarified hastily, looking down at his hands as if to hide the blush that crept over his features.

Jensen’s insides tightened even further at the words. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to have a casual friendship with the guy, but was that even still possible after everything that had happened between them?

“I’m in therapy now,” Matt added as if in afterthought, like the fact that he was taking that step would make a big difference.

Jensen gave him a tight-lipped smile, nodding slowly. “That’s good… that’s… I’m glad.”

Matt looked a little disappointed by Jensen’s words like he had expected a different reaction, maybe a hug or a pat on the shoulder.

When the silence between them became unbearable, Matt blinked a few times, eyes blurry with shame and something else that Jensen vaguely recognized as sad resignation. “Uhm, okay, well it was nice seeing you… I- I’ll just get going now—“

“Matt, wait,” Jensen stepped forward and grabbed Matt by his jacket to keep him from rushing off. “I’d like that for us… to be friends, I mean.”

“Yeah?” a glimmer of hopefulness sparked in Matt’s steel blue eyes.

“Yeah, sure, just—“ Jensen shrugged a little. “Just friends.”

Because he wasn’t about to give Matthew hope for something that was definitely no longer in the cards. And he didn’t want there to be any ambiguity about this.

“Yeah no, I got that memo,” Matt pressed his lips together. “Besides I uh… I saw Jared pick you up a few times.”

Jensen swallowed, wondering if Matt had been watching him or if the news had made the round on the campus.

Jared stuck out of the Harvard crowd like a sore thumb with his tats and stained wife beaters and his overall badass attitude, the guy was turning heads everywhere he went. They hadn’t exactly been secretive about their meetings or general attraction towards each other.

Jensen was pretty sure they’d been spotted kissing a couple of times in the past few weeks and news like that usually spread like a wildfire in Harvard.

Strangely enough, it didn’t bother him what others thought about him and Jared hooking up.

Maybe the gang’s devil-may-care attitude was starting to rub off on him or maybe he had just matured enough to realize that others’ opinions didn’t matter, it was hard to tell.

But he sure as hell wasn’t going to justify his actions to Matt or anyone else.

“Good,” he said with a casual smile, wanting Matt to know that yes, he really wasn’t available anymore… at least not in the way Matt might hope.

“Guess I’ll see you around then,” he turned away and pulled his phone from his jeans, draining the rest of his beer in one go.

‘ ** _Shoot me your address. About to take off.’_**   (Message from: You. Sent at: 10:28 PM)

 ** _'450 Huntington Ave. What are you wearing?’_** (Message from: JAY. Received at: 10:30 PM)

Jensen actually laughed out loud as he looked down at the screen.

 ** _‘That little black dress you like…’_** (Message from: You. Sent at: 10:31 PM)

 ** _‘And beneath?’_** (Message from: JAY. Received at: 10:32 PM)

Jensen bit his lower lip and shot a fleeting glance around to make sure nobody was getting a glimpse at his phone.

Grinning a little to himself he quickly typed in a text.

Fuck Jared for making him behave like a fourteen-year-old girl with a crush.

 ** _‘Red lace panties and a matching bra.’_** (Message from: You. Sent at: 10:33 PM)

The response came almost immediately.

 ** _‘Better be wearing those panties.’_** (Message from: JAY. Received at: 10:33 PM)

Jensen swallowed, mouth suddenly dry and jeans uncomfortably tight around his crotch.

He took a calming breath before approaching Mike and Tom who were pressed against the wall, making out.

He tapped Mike’s shoulder. “I’m taking off. You guys keep an eye on Danni ok? I’m pretty sure she took off with that douchebag she’s been talking about.”

Tom looked slightly drunk, cheeks flushed from either lust or the hot, stuffy air in the room and some of Mike’s green make-up was smeared across his mouth and cheeks from their most recent make-out session.

“Your phone charged?”

“Yeah,” Jensen gave him a gracious little smile. “Don’t wait up, ok?”

Tom grabbed Jensen’s wrist. “You take a cab, okay? If anything feels sketchy or weird, you get the hell out of there. Promise me, man.”

Jensen barely refrained from rolling his eyes “Promise, mom. Now get back to making out.”

Jensen headed out into the cold, laughing when he caught a glimpse of Misha’s naked butt shaking off to Taylor swift on a table top.

His friends were a weird bunch for sure, but Jensen loved them.

He really did.

 

 

“What are you grinning about?” Steve jabbed his elbow lightly into Jared’s side and shoved a shot glass into his chest, some of the liquor sloshing over the rim and soaking Jared’s clothes.

He clinked glasses with his friend before drowning the vodka with a slight wince and slamming the empty glass back down on the counter.

“Nothing,” he said, putting his phone away and chasing the taste of Vodka down with a sip of beer.

The bar was crowded, dozens of people having loud conversations around them, the buzz of their voices competing with the roaring rock music that dominated the atmosphere. The air was stale with sweat and the cigarette smoke, the beer was cheap and the waitresses were frisky.

The crowd was young and mostly Irish, their heavy accents clearly audible despite the overall noisiness.

Jared didn’t mind.

South Boston was a melting pot of cultures, especially the Irish and Hispanics had long ago become part of the local culture in their neighborhoods.

“Jensen coming?” Steve asked almost casually, lighting up a cigarette with a silver zippo. 

Jared watched the flame dance and lick at the tip of the cancer stick until it started glowing a bright orange. “He’s on his way.”

Steve nodded. “I saw Seth outside in the parking lot. Fucker’s showing off his nose job.”

Jared suppressed a groan. “He got backup?”

“At least three guys from what I could tell.”

“You think he’s out for trouble?” Jared‘s fingers curled instinctively around the cool beer glass.

Steve gave him a sideways glance and shrugged, cigarette loosely dangling from his lips. “Hard to tell. He might not try anything with us, but not sure how he’s gonna react to seeing Jensen.”

Jared’s jaw locked, his eyes flashing with a surge of protectiveness.

If he’d known Seth was here he wouldn’t have fucking invited Jensen along. Or at the very least, he would have stopped drinking five fucking shots ago.

This situation practically called for a fight and Jared couldn’t afford to be inattentive or have a slowed reaction time when Jensen was there to pay the price.

Jared clenched his fingers into fists, anger throbbing thick and hot through his veins.

He almost wanted for Seth to dare make a move on Jensen. Fucker would hit the ground like a ten-pound sledgehammer in full-swing.

“How’s everyone?”

“Chris is good, chasing skirts but not drunk yet. Girls are tipsy at best. Ty’s keeping an eye on them.”

“Good. Make sure someone’s with them at all times, alright?” Jared held Steve’s gaze for a moment, eyes intense in the dark shine of the dust, flecked bar lights. “Let Chris and Ty know, too. Can’t have them drunk off their asses in case we need back-up.”

Tonight was meant to be a celebration of Chad’s recovery.

The Reapers didn’t usually come to this part of town and they knew better than to go to a pub that was part of their territory, but after everything that had happened, they couldn’t get reckless.

Steve took off with a curt nod and Jared tensed when he felt someone melting against his back from behind.

For a second, he thought it was Jensen, but the body felt all wrong, a little shorter and a whole lot curvier. He knew this body well, had explored it thoroughly in the past.  

“Wanna catch some fresh air?” Genevieve growled at him in a low voice, her hot breath tickling the side of his neck. “Getting a little hot in here.”

Her nimble fingers slipped beneath his shirt, skirting the warm skin of his stomach with clear intent.

She nipped at his earlobe and he closed his eyes, fighting the rush of heat that surged through his stomach. He turned around halfway, eyes momentarily dropping to her low-cut neckline and lingering there.

“C’mon,” she tugged at his arm with a suggestive little smile on her lips and then hesitated when Jared didn’t move along. “What?”

Jared said nothing, just looked her deep in the eyes, expression stony.

Genevieve was calculating on her best day. Jared was willing to bet she knew Jensen was about walk through the doors of the pub any minute now. And what better way to stake her claim than to have Jensen walk in on them fucking in the storage room?

“Not tonight,” he grabbed her hand and pulled it away from his chest. Jared wasn’t about to play along with her manipulative little games.

The smile vanished from Gen’s lips, her eyes turning cold. “Fine. Suit your fucking self.” 

 

 

The bar was everything Jensen had expected and more. His eyes started stinging the second he stepped through the door, smoke twisting through the stuffy air, forming artistic little twirls in the age-specked gloom of the green bar lights.

Various kinds of liquor were lined up on a shelf, amber and clear liquid in non-descript, dust-covered bottles, the dim light catching invitingly on the old glass.

It was noisy inside, but Jensen immediately turned his head towards the sound of Katie’s laughter coming from somewhere to his right. He easily spotted the gang sitting around a table amidst all the other bar patrons and weaved his way through the crowd.

“Look who finally made it here,” Chris slung an arm around Jensen’s neck and raised his fingers to order a drink for him. “What took you so long, princess?”

“Jensen!” Katie greeted him enthusiastically over the jangle of voices and leaned over the table top to sling her skinny arms around him. “We’re playing ‘spin the bottle’!”

As if to prove that she was actually telling the truth, Katie spun the bottle and pulled a face when the neck of it ended up pointing at Chase.

He grinned over at her and winked flirtatiously. “Give me all you’ve got, Kitty Cat.”

“That’s not fair,” Katie pouted, even as she made her way over. “It’s not like I could convert him.”

“Hate to say it, but you wouldn’t be able to convert this one either,” Chris jabbed a thumb in Jensen’s direction and Jensen flushed a little, not even bothering to protest.

Katie grabbed the back of Chase’s neck and yanked him down for a somewhat aggressive kiss while Chris cheered them on from the side.

“What the fuck is this?” Steve appeared next to Jensen, holding two beers in his hands and handing one over to the newcomer. “What did I miss? Chase into boobs now?”

“I doubt it,” Chris snorted and then laughed at the equally disgusted expressions on their faces when they broke apart.

“Let’s never do that again,” Katie grimaced as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Agreed,” Chase downed his shot with a shiver.

Jensen was about to ask where Jared was when the taller man suddenly appeared right next to him.

The collar of his black leather jacket was popped around his corded neck, the head of his phoenix tattoo peeking out invitingly from the V-cut of his shirt.

Really, Jensen had always thought of himself as mannerly enough not to start gawking at someone in public, but having Jared stand in front of him like this, so at ease with himself, so comfortable in his skin, had him mesmerized in a way he would never be able to describe with words.

“My turn,” Jared said, reaching out to spin the bottle, without taking his eyes off Jensen.

He didn’t even wait for it to come to a halt before he stepped forward and cupped the back of Jensen’s head with his palm, long fingers tangling in the short hair as he brought their mouths together.

The kiss was surprisingly slow and gentle in a way that had the world around them stop on its axis.

Jensen swayed a little and Jared wrapped his arm around him, steadying him as he pulled back again, grabbing his beer from the table and taking a sip like nothing had happened.

The whole gang was watching them, Chase silently fuming across the table and Katie grinning like she’d just gotten an early birthday present. “God damn, you two are so fucking hot together. Like _molten lava hot_.”

“At least one of us is getting their kicks out of this,” Chris grimaced, looking slightly disturbed.

Belatedly, Jensen noticed that the bottle had really stopped pointing at Jensen.

“How did you know?” he frowned because there was no way Jared could have guessed at what position the bottle would stop spinning.

“I didn’t,” Jared said and something hot settled low in Jensen’s belly at the low tone of his voice, the dark glimmer of his eyes as he slowly raked them over Jensen’s body.

“Alright, this is starting to get way too pornographic,” Chris raised his palms, effectively breaking the mood. “How about a game of pool to keep you two from jumping each other’s’ bones for a little while longer, huh?”

“I’m gonna be upfront with y’all,” Jensen smiled, raising his hands. “I’m pretty damn good at pool.”

“Sounds like a challenge if I’ve ever heard one,” Steve laughed, slapping Jared’s back in playful encouragement.

“You seriously want to watch these two screwing each other across the pool table?” Chris whined, clearly unhappy about the turn of events. “I thought we were going to play a game together. As in _all_ of us together.”

“Takes way too fucking long,” Katie explained. “Besides, they could be screwing each other against any kind of furniture and I’d still cheer them on.”

“Nobody’s going to screw anyone,” Steve frowned. “Jared’s gonna wipe the floor with the college boy’s ass and that’s that. Right, Jay?”

Jared grinned, a devilish glimmer in his eyes and Jensen thought he might have bitten off a bit more than he could chew.

He was a decent pool player, had always been eerily good at the game, but most of his opponents hadn’t been growing up on the streets, hadn’t spent half their youth in shady bars like this and hustling pool like Jared doubtlessly had.

“I bet twenty on Jensen,” Chris tossed his own bill onto the table and Katie joined in on the fun. “Yeah, me too.”

Chase snorted. “My bet’s on Jared.”

“Ditto,” Steve tossed two ten-dollar bills to the rest. “College smarts can only get you this far.”

Jared grabbed the two cue sticks from behind the bar and nodded towards the table. “Last chance to back out of this.”

Jensen snorted. “Getting scared, old man?”

The game was on.

 

 

Jensen played pool like nobody else Jared had ever seen.

He sunk almost every damn ball he was aiming for and he did it with so much precision that Jared was starting to regret his decision to let him take first shot.

Jared was rock hard in his jeans just from watching Jensen’s back muscles ripple beneath his sweaty shirt as he leaned over the pool table, the look of concentration on his face enough of a turn on to make his cock twitch with interest.

Three pool balls pocketed and the crowd had edged closer from the side, other regulars along with the rest of the gang watching in awe as the younger man cleared the table, much to Chris and Katie’s enjoyment.

“You gonna let me have a go at that table at some point?” Jared asked and Jensen ignored him, broad shoulders straight with solid confidence as he lined up his next shot.

Jared let his gaze trail over the man’s narrow hips, the swell of his perky ass inside worn jeans, leading to the slight bow legs that looked every inch the powerful muscle the rest of his body was.

The faded and fraying material didn’t leave anything to the imagination, but if he were to bend over just a little more…

Jared suppressed a low groan when Jensen did just that, bending over just a little further and jamming his cue stick forward in a way that made his ass stick out in the most favorable way possible.

It was a difficult shot but Jensen made it all the same, sending the ball home with enough spin to avoid the devious corners of the mid pocket.

“Give up?” he quirked an eyebrow up at Jared and the taller man snorted.

“You’re good. But not good enough.”

“That so?” Jensen’s smile widened, cupid-bow lips giving way to a set of pearl white teeth.

Jared wondered if he even fucking realized how many of the other patrons were watching him.  

He had caught some of the salacious looks the bar patrons had tossed Jensen’s way in the course of their game and it had taken every ounce of Jared’s self-control to keep from punching their fucking lights out.

“Yeah,” Jared took a step closer and slipped an arm around him, fingers slowly moving down to fan out over Jensen’s ass in a possessive grip.

“Do me a favor?” Jared whispered against the shell of Jensen’s ear, sending one of Jensen’s male admirers a murderous scowl over Jensen’s shoulder. “Tone it down a little? You’re getting way more attention than just mine.”

If possible, Jensen’s blush turned a more vivid shade of crimson and Jared chuckled, leaning in to seal their lips together briefly.

He released Jensen with a hard squeeze of his ass and a sharp nip to the man’s plush bottom lip.

When Jensen’s next shot went astray, Jared only felt slightly guilty.

Shifting his watchful gaze away from the game, Jared couldn’t help his lip from curling into a slight snarl when the guy who’d been ogling Jensen just minutes before had started raking his eyes over him once more.

Motherfucker obviously hadn’t gotten the memo about Jensen being _taken._

Not to mention that Jensen was way out of the guy's league.

Bastard was the type of seedy that gave seedy a bad name and he was lurking way too fucking close to Jensen, eyes practically undressing the kid right in front of Jared like he wanted to get his fucking teeth knocked out.

Jared forced himself to keep calm despite the growing unease in his chest.

He suddenly wanted for the game to be over, wanted to get Jensen the hell out of here, away from the suggestive stare of all these strangers.

“Ever seen someone clear the table in one inning?” Jared looked up at Jensen with a cocked brow.

Jensen snorted. “You wish.”

Someone in the crowd had ordered him a drink and Jensen drained about half of it in one go.

Jared took a deep breath and shifted his focus back on the pool balls. “How did you make your shots earlier?”

“What do you mean?” Jensen frowned.

“What’s your technique?” Jared made his first shot. The white pool ball slithered smoothly across the green felt and knocked into the orange one, which promptly fell into the pocket on the far right.

Steve cheered and another round of shots was ordered.

So much for keeping a clear head.

Jared hoped Steve had enough good grace to keep an eye out for their special friend, Seth.

“Well,” Jensen cleared his throat, head bent slightly forward. “A pool table is a rectangle, which means it has four corners at perfect 90-degree angles. The kinetic energy created by tapping the pool balls is being transferred from one ball to another and always conserved unless met with resistance—“

“In other words,” Jared pocketed another ball and gave the white one another solid whack to send it rolling towards his next target. “You’re playing pool like a mathematician.”

Four down. Two more to go.

Jensen’s eyes were slightly glazed over and Jared wondered if the alcohol was starting to get to him.

He made his next shot with a little more force than necessary, sending it home with a loud whack when the balls impacted.

“It’s physics, actually,” Jensen replied almost bashfully, words slurring together ever so slightly.

Jared grinned at that, lining up his cue stick for the last shot. “Screw physics. This isn’t a science project, it’s about being in tune with the cue and the table. You need to feel it in your guts. Feel each stroke like the beat of your heart.”

Jensen swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing as he took in Jared’s words.

He was leaning against the wall now, looking a little pale in the dull gloom of the dusty lighting.

Jared frowned, distracted from his own game as he wondered how Jensen could go from perfectly capable of handling his shots to swaying drunkenly against the pub walls.

Steve seemed to notice it too. “Hey, man, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jensen’s eyes widened a little as if he was forcing himself to focus but the drawl didn’t quite leave his words. “Just gonna go to the bathroom real quick.”

Jared made his next shot without even really looking and then started to go after Jensen, but Steve held him back by the shoulder, eyes fixated on the pub’s entrance as the door was swung open.

Donovan was standing in the doorway, face a swollen and bruised mess around his heavily bandaged nose and the crowd around the pool table was slowly dissolving, sensing that the game was over and that trouble was stewing.

Perfect fucking timing.

Jared sent one more glance towards the bathroom stalls, longing to go after Jensen and check if he was okay, but the knowledge that Seth was here with them instead of anywhere close Jensen was oddly reassuring.

“Nice shiner,” Jared cracked his knuckles when Seth came to a halt in front of them. “What happened? Ran into someone half your size and ten times your fucking brains?”

“Laugh it up, Padalecki,” Seth growled, voice strangely nasal as he spoke. “That boy of yours is gonna pay for what he did.”

Jared’s eyes narrowed at the indirect threat towards Jensen, a burst of fury lancing through his veins.

“You know,” he said, inclining his head to the side. “I really thought that broken nose there would teach you who you’re dealing with. But maybe I was wrong.”

“But I know who I’m dealing with,” Seth returned and something didn’t sit right with Jared at the self-righteous smirk on the guy's face. “Three dead men walking.”

He laughed a little, looking pleased with himself. “Lucian sends his regards, by the way. He asks if Jeff had taken his truck for a spin lately.”

Jared blinked at him for a second, eyes growing wide as realization slowly started to sink in.

Donovan was in touch with Lucian, which could only mean one thing.

He was one of them.

That was as far as his racing mind allowed him to think before three more guys stepped out of the crowd, seemingly appearing out of thin air.

A few frantic calls erupted in the crowd and a few patrons hastily made their way to the pub’s exit.

Jeff… the fucker had mentioned Jeff’s truck.

They had done something to the fucking truck!

Before Jared could do or say anything, Seth advanced with a low growl and all hell broke loose.

 

 

Jensen was no expert on alcohol or getting drunk, for that matter, but he was pretty damn sure this wasn’t normal.

Just a few minutes ago he had been fairly tipsy at worst, had still been able to make his shots count at the pool game, had been steady on his feet and having a clear vision.

Now he was propped up on the sink for support, the cracked porcelain bowl being pretty much the only thing keeping him upright.

He had troubles keeping his eyes open, for some reason, his eyelids just kept drooping, even as he ran ice cold water over his veins.

His face was practically ashen, suddenly drained of all color and beads of cold sweat had broken out on his neck and forehead.

Jensen wasn’t able to align his thoughts properly in his mind, wasn’t even sure he was still capable of speaking in coherent sentences, anymore.

A strange kind of heat was pulsating through his body, setting every cell of his mind and body on fire, making it impossible to just think or do anything other than fucking  _breathe_.

There was a ruckus going on outside and Jensen felt like that might be important- like the sudden noise permeating the air had a meaning attached to it, but he couldn’t possibly get behind it, couldn’t think beyond the overwhelming heat that threatened to burn his whole body to ashes.

Loud noise was filtering in through the doorway, distant voices raised in the heat of a vicious fight, but Jensen couldn’t stay focused, his mind already wandering off to a distant, unfamiliar place where he couldn’t hold on to cohesive thought long enough for concern or panic to sink in.

The sound of fighting teetered off, congealed like someone was holding Jensen’s face under water, drowning him.

He closed his eyes, breathing heavily, sweat rolling down his temples as the tremor in his limbs grew more violent.

His heart was pounding loudly in his chest and deep down inside the blurry mess that was Jensen’s mind, he caught on a word and latched on to it with his last sliver of rationality.

_Drugged._

He must have been drugged.

“Hey there, gorgeous,” a gruff voice had Jensen whirl around in panic, eyes slamming open.

Through his blurred vision, he could see a guy in the cracked bathroom window, sidling up behind him, hard chest pressed close against Jensen’s quivering back. “Been watching you all night, you know?”

Jensen’s mind was struggling to catch up with the words when large palms settled intrusively on either side of his waist. “Watched you bend that hot little ass over the pool table like a bitch in fucking heat.”

Jensen flinched and moaned when callused fingers grazed the bare skin above his waist, raising gooseflesh in their wake.

His reflexes were too slow, his attempts to fight the offending hands off totally ineffective.

“S-stop—“ he tried to fend off the unwanted touch, tried to turn around and shove at the guy’s chest, but he barely managed to do any damage, before the guy grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him backward against the tiled bathroom wall in one fluent movement. All the air left his lungs in a panicked rush and Jensen gasped out in pain, black spots dancing at the edge of his vision.

“Enough of that, pretty boy,” the guy growled out hot and heavy against the side of Jensen’s neck. He tried to scream, but all that left his lips was a weak, choked-off sound of protest.

“Shh, just a few more minutes and you’ll be begging for it like the little slut you are.”

There was a gruff chuckle, cold hands against his bare skin and Jensen felt like he was going to be sick.

The whole world was spinning around him and his lungs were on fire with his rapid exhales, his breathing so fast it fucking  _hurt_.

He tried to kick out at the guy, tried to punch him, but his uncoordinated movements were easily fended off by his attacker.

“You’re a fighter, huh? You shouldn’t even bestanding after how much of that shit you downed.”

A strong hand tightened around his wrists, pulled them up over his head and there was a warm, slick sensation against the side of his neck, which Jensen vaguely recognized as a mouth.

 _God,_   _no._

Scalding heat trailed up to Jensen’s lips and a pitiful groan left his mouth when invasive fingers started to fumble with his belt buckle.

“I like myself a wildcat... more fun if you struggle."

The sound of a zipper made Jensen flinch and he tried to scream but all that managed to slip from his trembling lips was a soft mewling sound, like from a hurt animal, grating along his vocal chords like sandpaper.

A hand was dipping into his jeans and unabashed panic surged through Jensen’s veins at the foreign, unwanted sensation.

The unexpected surge of adrenaline had him redouble his efforts to escape, shaky hands reaching up to shove and scratch and _claw_ at the unforgiving mountain of flesh hovering way too fucking close to his own.

He might as well have tried to shove at a giant brick wall because the guy didn’t budge a fucking inch, didn’t even so much as flinch or waver at Jensen’s kitten-weak attempts to fight him off.

“Yeah, fight while you still can,” the guy growled out, barely audible over the furious panic ratcheting his heart, the frantic beat of his own heart thundering loudly in his ears. “Cause in a few minutes you’ll be hanging off my dick and loving every damn second of it.”

Jensen’s eyes grew wide, breath hitching in his throat as he shook his head in sluggish protest, bucking his hips to escape the stranger’s unwanted touch.

“N-no,” his eyes were filled with tears, head spinning as callused fingers ran up to the side of his face, digging into his cheeks hard enough to leave bruises and holding his head against the tiled brick wall in a brutal grip.

“I’ll make you beg for it. Get off on your screams while I fuck you.”

_No. God, please no._

He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t fucking  _breathe_.

“N-n... nuh, st-sto…” he uttered a last garbled protest, growing more desperate as the panic inside of him picked up momentum.

He felt fingers dig painfully into his jaw and then the guy's mouth clashed hard with his own in a violent, one-sided kiss, muffling whatever desperate plea was on his mind.

The black spots dancing at the end of his vision crept closer and Jensen’s last conscious thoughts before darkness yanked him under him was  _Jared._

 

 

Jared looked down around at the remnants of what used to be Punter’s pub and spat a glob of blood-flecked spittle to the ground before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Splintered wood and broken furniture were covering the floor, Seth and his fucking goons were lying amidst the mangled interior, unmoving and groaning in pain while the bar owner and a few frightened patrons were cowering behind the bar.

“Y’alright?” Steve sniffed, his face a bit swollen from the few blows he had taken.

Ty had taken the brunt of the hits and needed to be supported by Chris and Chase, who both looked a little worse for wear, but good, overall.

Katie had a bleeding cut at her hairline from where one of these motherfuckers had hit her over the head, her blond hair was a mess, cheeks flushed from exertion and she was shaking all over, her own knuckles busted from the fight.

Steve had gone ballistic when she had gotten attacked, grabbing one of the fucking pool balls from the table and slamming it into the goon’s face until it was a mangled mess.

"Hey, man, you okay?" Steve’s palm landed heavy on Jared’s shoulder and Jared shrugged it off almost angrily, sending another kick to Seth’s body sprawled out at his feet.

“Fucking piece of shit!” he beckoned, his voice echoing through the desecrated bar.

That son of a bitch was going to eat his food through a straw for the rest of his life.

Jared yanked his cell out of his pocket and pressed speed dial for Jeff, cursing violently when the phone went straight to voicemail. “He’s not picking up.”

“I’ll go take the bike to your house, check if he’s there,” Steve said and headed for the door.

Genevieve, who had rejoined them during the fight instantly followed him towards the pub’s exit. “I’m gonna check the shop, just in case.”

Jared swore under his breath when his second call went to voicemail.

He drove a trembling hand through his thick hair and blurted out words as soon as he heard the automatic beep on the other end. “Don’t use your truck under any circumstances, you fucking hear me? The Reapers did something to it, probably messed with the brakes. I’m serious. Do not use the fucking car no matter what, just stay fucking put until I get there, alright?”

Jared snapped the phone closed, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.

Jeff hadn’t had reason to leave the fucking house tonight. And if he had, he surely would have taken his bike… _unless_ it had been raining, or he needed to transport something that required more space or his bad leg was bothering him again.

_God fucking dammit._

“Where’s Jensen?” Katie’s voice pulled him out of his maelstrom of thoughts and just like that, Jared’s racing heart slammed to a terrified halt. “Anyone see him during the fight?”

The rest of the gang exchanged a few shrugs and Jared’s gaze slowly traveled to the bathroom stalls.

Stepping over Seth’s body, he made a beeline for the men’s room and slammed the door open with a resounding echo. 

And then he froze, unable to process the sight in front of him.

Jensen was pressed up against the wall, naked above the waist and pinned in place by the son of a bitch who had been ogling him during the game of pool, earlier.

The guy was practically mauling Jensen, one of his palms running over any inch of Jensen’s bare chest, while the other one was right down the front of his fucking jeans.

Jensen moaned beneath the guy and Jared’s brain short-circuited.

_Jensen was screwing around behind his fucking back._

In the blink of an eye, a thousand thoughts and emotions bubbled to the surface of Jared’s mind and heart, hurt and betrayal quickly giving way to blinding fury.

Jared wanted nothing more than to pound his fist into the stranger’s face until nothing was fucking left of it, until every single bone was broken, his features a mangled, irreparable mess.

A small whimper escaped Jensen’s lips and that was when Jared noticed it.

The breathy quality of Jensen’s tone was nothing like the heartfelt sounds Jared had wrung from Jensen’s throat a few days ago.

“Nuh,” Jensen’s protest was barely audible, muffled by the guy’s mouth, but Jared still caught it, still heard the _objection_ in Jensen’s tone, the desperation. "N-noo..."

Jensen didn’t want this.

He wasn’t enjoying this, hadn’t even fucking _agreed_ to it.

“Fucking biker slut,” the guy hissed, slapping Jensen across the cheek with so much force it knocked Jensen’s head back against the tiled bathroom wall with an audible _whack_.

Red. A red haze took over Jared’s mind, clouded every one of his thoughts, clogged his airways like cinder and threatened to suffocate him on the spot.

He pulled his gun from the back of his waistband, took a few quick strides forward and yanked the guy back by the shoulder so fast it sent him stumbling, before pressing the barrel down hard against his crotch. 

“What the hell?“

“Drugging them into compliance, you perverted son of a fucking bitch?” Jared cocked the gun and the guy’s eyes grew wide with panic.

“He _wanted_ it! He wanted it, I swear!” Fucker stumbled back, trying to escape but Jared got a throttling grip on the lapels of his jacket, gun still pressed tightly against his quickly bulging groin.

“Shut your fucking mouth and tell me what you gave him!”

Jared pressed the barrel in tighter, corkscrew of sensation across the rough denim.

Guy’s teeth clattered in his head and Jared could see the haze of tears collecting in his eyes.

“What the fuck did you give him?!” Jared repeated before tapping the barrel of his gun against the guy’s temple in warning. “Tell me _now_ or you’re gonna take two for the price of one,” he said, re-aligning his piece against the stranger’s groin.

“G-GHB, okay?!” the guy wailed brokenly, a few wayward tears leaking from his eyes.

Jared’s finger was twitching on the trigger, his nostrils flaring. “Come again?”

“GHB- Gama H-hydroxy… uh… shit something else, I don’t. _Fuck!_ I don’t fucking remember. It’s GHB on the s-streets. That’s all I know. I fucking s-swear!”

Jared grabbed a fistful of the guy’s hair and yanked his head back so hard, his neck nearly snapped in the process.

“You listen up you pathetic piece of fucking lowlife shit,” Jared snarled, ignoring the guy’s broken pleas. “In a moment you’ll be in so much fucking pain, you’re not even going to remember your own name. Wanna know why?”

The guy shook his head, face contorted in fear like he was about to fucking piss himself.

He was whimpering, fucking whining like the pathetic piece of shit he was, and Jared wondered how often that motherfucker had listened to the same sounds coming from his victims before he molested them. _Raped_ them.

“Cause by that time," Jared grit out from behind clenched teeth. "You'll no longer have a dick."

He pulled the trigger; a spray of hot blood spraying his face.

A blood-curdling scream filled the air and Jared watched with a strange kind of satisfaction as the guy’s eyes went wide, his whole face distorting in terrified agony. It was like a rising crescendo, the peak of his pain robbing him off his fucking breath and echoing off the walls of the bathroom.  

Jared removed the gun from the mangled remains of the fucker’s crotch and slammed the butt of it down hard on the junction of the guy’s neck, watching him sag to the ground in a puddle of his own blood.

For all he cared, that son of a bitch could bleed out like this. Or spend the rest of his life crying over the loss of his cock. 

A shuddering breath left Jared's lips when he turned around to look at Jensen, who lay slumped against the wall with his eyes closed, oblivious to the havoc going on around him.

His thick lashes were fanned out against ghostly pale cheeks, freckles standing out in stark contrast to the ashen color of his skin as he lay shivering against the tiled bathroom wall.

“Jensen,” Jared’s voice caught on the name as he pressed blood-coated fingers against the side of Jensen’s neck and felt the frantic flutter of the younger man’s heartbeat.

Jensen's shoulder was littered with bike marks and hickeys and Jared’s anger resurfaced with a vengeance that nearly had him pull his fucking gun back out of his jeans and finish the job he had started.

But he couldn’t allow himself to lose his shit now. Not when Jensen needed him.

Carding his fingers through the Jensen's hair, Jared winced at the soft moan that left the man’s lips, pupils moving rapidly beneath closed lids.

Seeing Jensen this vulnerable, this _exposed_ was almost too much to bear, the sound of the other man’s distress like physical torture.

“You’re gonna be fine,” Jared whispered, swiping a thumb almost lovingly over the younger man’s cheek, before pulling Jensen’s phone out of his jeans pocket and searched the contacts for Alona’s name.

The young woman picked up almost instantly. "Jensen? You okay? It's two in the morning—"

“You ever heard of the drug GHB?”

“Who is this?”

“Jensen’s been roofied,” Jared swallowed around the insurmountable surge of guilt that threatened to overwhelm him at the admission. “He’s not responsive and I don’t know how much of that shit he’s been given.”

There was a beat of silence. “Oh god. Was he—?”

“No,” Jared snapped, not even wanting to fucking go there. “It didn’t go that far, but there are bite marks and- _shit_ , can you just come and check him out? I’ll take him back to the campus.”

“Y-yeah okay,” Alona breathed out. “Keep talking to him. I’ll be there as fast as I can. ”

Jared ended the call and gathered Jensen up into his arms, one hand wrapped around his quivering back and the other snaked around his knees as he lifted him from the ground bridal-style.

Jensen’s head flopped forward listlessly, his face smushed against the side of Jared’s tattooed neck, small pants of hair ghosting against the warm skin there.

A soft sound escaped the unconscious man and Jared tightened his hold around him in an overwhelming surge of protectiveness, blinking when his vision grew blurry with tears.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, voice catching on the words. “You’re gonna be fine.”

Maybe it would become true if only he said it often enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed this one! I know, I know- poor Jensen. Sorry for doing that to him, but I promise he'll be okay. Jared might have gone a little ballistic there. What can I say? He doesn't take well to his man getting felt up by some douche. ;) Next chapter's gonna have the gang meeting Jensen's friends and J2 hotness. Only took me about 100k to get there, but good things come to those who wait! Many thanks to my amazing beta TheBoys and a big shout-out to ficluv82 for doing such a stellar job on the art front!! Reviews are love!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning* This chapter contains explicit sexual content and mentions of mpreg as well as non-consensual drug abuse.

****

** **

 

**Open Road  
Chapter 13**

For all of his six-foot frame of solid muscle and firm flesh, Jensen weighed next to nothing in Jared’s hold.

Maybe it was the residual adrenaline that coursed through Jared’s veins or the simple fact that Jensen needed him, but the weight didn’t even register in his brain as he carried the drugged man outside to the others.

“What the fuck happened?” Chris blanched at the sight of Jensen’s limp body. “Did someone get to him?”

“Is he hurt?” Katie asked and rushed over to get a better look at Jensen.

Jared ignored them both as he headed for the bar’s exit, stepping over Seth’s sprawled out body without as much as a downwards glance. “Grab your shit and get going.”

“What happened?” Ty demanded in a gruff voice, still heavily leaning on Chad. “We heard the shot. You alright?”

Jared didn’t bother to give them an answer, just tightened his hold on Jensen and gave the door a solid kick with his steel-capped boots, nearly unhinging it in the process.

Jensen flinched at the protesting sound of wood and rusty metal and quivered in his hold.

“Shhh,” Jared ran his fingers over the younger man’s back in soothing circles, stepping out into the frigid night air and feeling Jensen shiver against him.

“Jay, hold on a second, what the fuck’s going on?” Chris grabbed Jared’s shoulder, but Jared shrugged the other man’s hand off almost viciously, fixating him with a warning scowl.

“Take off your jacket,” he ordered and Chris hesitated, looking a little baffled.

“Wha—“

“I said take it off!” Jared’s patience snapped, voice rising with every word.

“Easy, boy,” Ty intervened. “Why don’t we all calm down there for a second?”

“Calm down?” Jared repeated slowly, trying the words on his mouth like they were a foreign concept. His lips were curling into a sneer on their own account, jaw locking so hard he thought he might hear the bone snapping. “Don’t fucking tell me to calm down!”

Katie’s eyes were brimming with tears when she stepped closer. “Jay,  _talk_ to us. Tell us what’s going on.”

“You want to know what the fuck’s going on?” Jared’s voice was loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood. “How about Jeff running his fucking truck against a wall while we’re standing talking about our fucking feelings? Or how about Jensen getting roofied and almost fucking raped in the room next to us while we were busy slamming cue balls into people’s faces? That enough of a fucking reason for me to lose my fucking shit?”

He felt like the events of the past thirty minutes were only starting to sink in now that they were finally out of that goddamn dirty shithole of a bar and back to breathing actual oxygen through their lungs.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Chris muttered almost as the words slowly sank in.

“Roofied?” Katie repeated with wide, terrified eyes. Her hand instantly reached out towards Jensen’s, intertwining her fingers with his lax ones. “He’s okay, though, right? You got there in time?”

Jared let out a humorless little laugh. “In time to see that motherfucking pervert with his hands shoved down the front of his jeans.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Chris growled out, eyes wild with fury as he whirled around and made a move towards the pub’s entrance, but Chase was there to hold him back.

“You out of your goddamn mind? Knowing Jared, the asshole got what he deserved. Now it’s time for us to get the hell out of here.”

“Chase’s right,” Katie sniffed, wiping shaking fingers over her bloodied face, her hand still tightly holding on to Jensen’s limp fingers. “We need to get him to a hospital—“

“No hospitals,” Jared cut her off instantly.

Jensen was as weak as a newborn kitten, barely recognizable in his drugged state and Jared would be damned if he let anyone, doctor or fucking not, see him in this state unless it was absolutely necessary.

“They ask too many fucking questions.”

“What about Jeff?” Chase was still clutching his phone like a lifeline. “I called Steve and Genevieve earlier but they didn’t pick up. Guess they’re still on their way.”

“Go after them,” Jared decided. “You’ll need our med supplies anyways if you wanna get Ty’s leg bandaged, so it’s probably best if you head back to the garage. Call me as soon as there’s any news on Jeff.”

“What about the others?” Chase nodded towards Chris and Katie.

Jared swallowed, looking down at the precious cargo in his arms. Jensen was still shivering, his skin sickly pale and cold to the touch as he nuzzled Jared’s neck. “There’s no fucking way I can ride the bike when he’s like this, so…”

“We need a car,” Katie concluded, brushing her thumb over the back of Jensen’s hand one last time before disentangling her fingers from his. She took a cursory glance around the area, eyes narrowing with intent as she scanned the parking lot around them for a viable vehicle to highjack. “I’ve got it covered. Give me five.”

She jogged off just as Chase fired up his bike’s engine and eased her off the parking lot with Ty in the backseat.

Jared stared after them, almost in trance as they sped down the streets.

“Here,” Chris took his jacket off and covered Jensen’s quivering shoulders with it, his hand lingering there like he needed some form of contact between the unconscious man and himself.

Jensen shifted slightly in Jared’s hold when the warm leather wrapped around him from behind, protecting him from the freezing wind that gusted through abandoned streets.

The distant sound of sirens echoed through the night and Jared would have been freaked if the sound of sirens wasn’t such a fucking constant in their neighborhood.

After a while, Chris gathered enough courage to break the silence. “He’s gonna be fine, right?”

Jared couldn’t bring himself to answer the question.

Jensen had almost been _raped a_ nd for all they knew, Jeff might already be dead.

There was absolutely nothing fine about any of this.

“I should have fucking known,” Chris breathed out in a nervous rush. “I should have gone after him when he took off for the restroom.”

Jared’s throat worked and he couldn’t meet Chris’ eyes, couldn’t see the guilt and blame in his friend’s eyes because it would reflect his own feelings, would remind him of how badly they had failed Jensen.

“What’s done is done. There’s no point dwelling on it.”

Katie drove up to the curb in a battered looking Volkswagen.

It was pretty much an empty husk, barely good for the gas in its tank and the battery. She got out from the driver seat and rounded the car, fishing Jared’s keys to the Harley from his bike. “What are you doing?”

“Taking your bike,” she returned, keys jingling softly in her palm. “Can’t leave it here overnight.”

“You should take your own,” Jared reasoned because one way or another, they would have to leave at least three of their bikes behind, counting in Ty’s chopper.

“Yours is worth more than all of ours combined,” Katie gave back with a small shrug, always going with the practical approach.

They all knew that it was dangerous to leave the bikes behind in this part of town, but Jared would have given them all up in an instant if it meant Jensen would be safe and comfortable.

His Harley meant a lot to him, it was like a mechanical extension of his body, a part of his fucking soul, and yet if it ever came down to it, he would give the machine up in a goddamn second for the man who lay curled up in his arms.

“I’ll drive,” Chris sunk behind the steering wheel and Katie opened the door on the back of the car for Jared, all of them working like a well, oiled machine.

She reached out to grab Jensen’s shoulders, supporting some of his weight as they eased him off of Jared’s chest and onto the car’s backseat.

Jensen let out a choked groan in protest at being removed from Jared’s side, arms weakly flopping to the side and eyelids fluttering in distress.

“It’s okay,” Katie kissed Jensen’s temple, fingers skimming over the dried tear tracks on his freckled cheek. “You’re gonna be alright. I know you will.”

Then she eased back out of the car, clapping Jared’s shoulder in gentle reassurance before taking off towards the Harley.

“Where to?” Chris waited for instructions, shifting gears as he floored the gas pedal.

“Harvard,” Jared gave back, rearranging Jensen’s uncooperative body until Jensen’s face was safely tucked against his collarbone. "And Chris? Step on the gas."

 

 

“No, stop it, set me back down, you brute!” Tom yelled when Mike slung him over his shoulder, a feat that wasn’t accomplished easily with Tom’s tall six-foot-two frame and a few liters of beer in his bloodstream.

Mike only staggered slightly under his boyfriend’s weight before tossing him down onto the mattress and climbing on top of him, both of them out of breath with from laughter and exertion.

It was late and they had settled in Tom’s king-sized bed, both a little exhausted from the night’s events, staring at each other and talking in hushed voices, while an old rerun of Oprah was playing on Mike’s flat screen.

“Did you see the way Misha looked at that guy at the party? What was his name again?”

Mike’s fingertips were drawing random patterns across Tom’s stomach, raising goose bumps in their wake.

“Milo… and yeah, I noticed. They weren’t exactly being subtle with their flirting.”

“He’s cute. I could imagine them together.”

Mike quirked an eyebrow. “Cute?” he repeated with a threatening undertone to his voice as something dark flashed in his bright-eyed gaze.

Tom rolled his eyes at his boyfriend’s temper. “Relax, Rosenbaum,” he lightly shoved at the other man’s shoulder. "It's not like you have anything to worry about."

“No, I’m curious,” Mike was joking, but the raspy quality of his tone still held an ounce of jealousy. “What’s so cute about him?”

“Well, he’s got these thick, dark curls like straight out of a shampoo commercial—“

“Okay, that’s enough,” Mike grabbed both of Tom’s naked thighs and hoisted him up, leaning down to press a hard kiss to the other man’s lips.

Tom bucked his hips, already hardening in his boxers when the sound of jingling keys had them both frozen in place.

“Jensen?” Mike let out a frustrated groan, forehead coming to rest on Tom’s collar bone.

It was nearly three o’clock.

Tom looked a little concerned as he shook his head. “I didn’t think he was gonna come home tonight.”

Grabbing his discarded shirt from the ground, Tom got up from bed. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’m coming,” Mike washed a hand over his face, before reluctantly leaving the warmth of the blankets.

He followed Tom outside, only to come to a crashing halt in the living room at the sight that met his eye.

There was a guy with long brunette hair that fell openly over his shoulder, bulky and gruff-looking, black shirt clinging to his rippling chest and muscular arms like a second skin.

He had a gun strapped to his chest and in a moment of blind panic, Mike thought _robbery_.

His first instinct was to grab Tom and shove the younger man behind him, to build a protective front between his boyfriend and the attackers, but then he noticed the second figure shoving through the doorway, taller even, than his companion, and carrying someone in his arms.

“Jensen,” the name left Tom’s lips in a shocked murmur like he couldn’t quite believe his own eyes at the sight in front of him.

But Mike saw it too.

That was definitely Jensen the guy was carrying, only that his skin was way too pale and his eyes were closed and his hair was practically soaked in cold sweat. He was barely with it, his limbs fucking shaking like he had lost all control over his own body. There was blood on his lips and a slight bruising around his cheekbone and he wasn’t wearing a _fucking_ shirt.

“Jensen? Jen! What’s wrong with him?” Tom shoved forward, voice panicked as he crowded closer, but Jared easily sidestepped him on his way to Jensen’s bedroom.

“Let me get him settled first.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed, the hurt and panic on his face quickly morphing to fury. “You stop right fucking there and tell me what the hell happened to him or I swear to god—“

“Easy,” Mike spread a palm across Tom’s chest, sending him a meaningful look. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this.”

He might as well have tried to calm down an enraged grizzly bear after hurting one of her cubs.

“You know what? Screw this, I’m calling the cops,“ Tom snarled, already fumbling for the phone in his pocket when Chris suddenly grabbed him by his shirt and tossed him against the bookshelf that lined the wall of the living room next to Jensen’s room.

“You listen up, you prissy son of a bitch, I’ve got no problem at all breaking your fucking fingers, but how about you save us all the time so we can focus on your so-called ‘friend’ for a minute, huh?”

“Stop it, both of you! What has gotten into you?” Mike shoved a hand between them, forcing them apart.

“You gonna let that fucking low-life scum talk to me like that?” Tom demanded and Mike wanted to strangle his boyfriend for never knowing when to shut up.

Chris’ eyes glinting with fury at the thoughtless remark. “Oh, I’ll show you what this fucking _low-life scum_ is made of, you little—”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Jared whirled around to shout at them and all of them shrunk back a little in surprise.

Jensen flinched in Jared’s hold, whimpering against the tattooed stretch of skin along Jared’s neck, his shaking fingers fisting the dark fabric of the man’s shirt. 

And maybe that gesture, laced with so much open vulnerability, made Mike finally realize how serious this whole situation really was.

Because Jensen wasn’t just out of it, hadn’t just had a couple of beers too many and then passed out drunkenly in the corner of the bar somewhere.

He had gotten _hurt._

“You wanna know what the fuck happened?” Jared was shaking all over and Mike couldn’t be sure if it was from the strain of carrying Jensen or from his own impending emotional breakdown. “He got drugged and nearly fucking raped by some perverted motherfucker. So how about you stow your self-righteous bullshit for one goddamn minute and help me get him comfortable?”

Drugged.

Jared’s words were on repeat in Mike’s mind, echoing through the very core of his heart with annihilating devastation, the thought of Jensen getting drugged and dragged off into some dirty bathroom stall, completely helpless to defend himself, was making him physically sick.

But whatever level of shock he was experiencing, the news hit Tom even harder, his face blanching within a span of seconds as the words sank in, eyes growing huge and watery as his features twisted in denial.

“Oh _god,_ “ Tom choked out, fingers shaking as he reached out to touch the side of Jensen’s clammy face with hesitance, almost as if he was afraid to hurt him any further. “Please tell me he wasn’t—“

Jared swallowed, averting his gaze.

“Fucker hadn’t come very far before I found him,” he sighed. “Look, can I just get him settled somewhere before we play twenty questions?”

Tom nodded and Jared pushed through the door, careful to protect Jensen’s head as he carried him over to the poster bed and gently lowered him onto the cushions.

Tom followed him inside, eyes never leaving Jensen’s unconscious form as he scanned him for wounds. “Why didn’t you bring him to a hospital?”

“I’m not gonna let a bunch of strangers examines him while he’s in this state,” Jared smoothed Jensen’s soaked hair away from his forehead. “But I called Alona… she said she was gonna drop by and take a look at him.”

Tom sat down next to Jensen on the edge of the mattress and pulled the covers up around his shivering form. “Jensen… Jen, can you hear me?”

 _“Jay,”_ the name tumbled unbidden from Jensen’s shaking lips, slightly slurred and barely audible, but Mike heard it all the same. Jensen’s ghostly pale fingers were clenched tightly in Jared’s shirt, lips shaking as his head lolled from side to side, almost like he was caught in a nightmare or fever dream.

“Right here,” Jared brushed his fingers gently over the angry red marks on Jensen’s cheeks and a new surge of rage quelled in Mike’s chest when he realized that there was a series of vicious looking bite marks and hickeys on and around Jensen’s throat. “Not going anywhere, you hear me?”

Tom must have noticed the marks littering Jensen’s collarbone and neck as well, because he took a slow step forward, lifting trembling fingers to pull back the leather jacket that was, at least, two sizes too big on Jensen’s shaking torso.

“Oh my god,” he let out in a raw whisper, stumbling back to his feet at the violent marks that covered the skin around Jensen’s throat. He took a shuddering breath and squeezed his eyes shut in shock, the evidence of what had been done to Jensen too much to bear. “He… he _bit_ him. That son of a bitch bit him!”

“Fucker got what he deserved,” Chris growled out in a low tone and Mike shuddered at the unspoken implication of the words. His eyes flickered over to Jared and that was when he noticed it.

Jared’s hands, the same fingers he had just used to brush lovingly over Jensen’s cheeks in a gesture of comfort and reassurance, were coated in red, dried flakes of dark crimson sprinkled all over his knuckles and fingernails.

“Jared,” Mike’s tone was calm as he spoke, his eyes boring holes into the back of the biker’s head. “What did you do to the guy who assaulted him?”

Because if Jared had killed the guy- if he had pulled his gun in the heat of the moment and blown his freaking brains out, that would mean that they would have to turn him in. But how would he be able to do that, when Mike wanted nothing more than to kill that fucking asshole himself?

For five years he’d been studying law, working out cases with rape and murder victims with a sense of emotional detachment only to stand here now and realize that all of that knowledge- all of that _professionalism_ went flying out the fucking window as soon as it affected him personally.

Somebody had drugged their friend and tried to _rape_ him.

There was no justifying that. No moral reasoning or defense. There was just grief and a raw, desperate thirst for revenge.

A soft banging noise from the door broke the moment before Jared could answer and Chris immediately started forward. “I’ll get it.”

Jensen winced a little at the sound of somebody knocking at the door, face pulled into a grimace as he murmured something unintelligible into his pillow, chest heaving a little in panic.

“Jay,” he muttered brokenly and Tom swallowed. He looked up to meet Jared’s eyes over Jensen’s sprawled out form on the bed and clenched his teeth so fucking tight Mike thought they were going to snap. “You don’t even know, do you?”

_How much he cares about you._

_How badly you've fucked this up._

Jared swallowed and his hazel eyes were filled with so much pain and guilt and self-loathing that Mike couldn’t help but realize that yes, Jared knew _all_ of it.

 

 

Alona was very matter-of-factly about it all.

She didn’t ask them about any details- didn’t even want to know _how_ it had happened or _why_.

She told Jared to hold Jensen while she worked Chris’ leather jacket off of his uncooperative shoulders and then murmured low words of reassurance against Jensen’s ear when his head flopped forward against her chest.

Tom sat on the mattress beside of them the whole time, clutching at Jensen’s hand and absentmindedly brushing his own thumb across the drugged man’s palm.

“There are bite marks on his neck,” he said after a while, voice hoarse and strangely subdued.

“I know,” Alona said, expression kept carefully blank as she lowered shaking fingers to Jensen’s jeans and opened the zipper. Jensen’s reaction was instantaneous, he bucked off Jared’s chest in mindless panic, trying to shake her off as he lolled his head to the side, choking on a low, protesting groan.

Jared’s jaw locked, throat working as he tightened his hold on Jensen’s writhing form. “Is this really necessary?”

“I need to see the extent of his injuries,” Alona explained softly.

Mike and Chris left the room to give them some privacy. “We’ll be just outside if you need anything.”

Alona started working as soon as they were out the door.

“Hold him, okay?” she told Jared, who nodded tersely before unfastening his jeans and pulling them off his legs.

Tom averted his gaze out of decency, tightening his hold on Jensen’s hands when his breath hitched, just like it did when he was about to cry and _god_ , he had known it was going to be hard to be here but this was worse than anything he’d mentally prepared himself for.

Jensen’s bottom lip was still split and sluggishly oozing blood from where that bastard must have bitten him and there was an angry red mark on Jensen’s cheekbone from where he had been backhanded.

Tom had never seen the kid so wrecked before.

Jensen was vibrant and strong, eyes dancing and face thrown back in laughter. He was gentle and smart and so genuinely caring about the people around him. He was kind, with a bigger heart than anyone else Tom had ever known.

To think that somebody had attacked him, that some fucking slimy bastard had cornered Jensen in some shady pub, had used Jensen’s trusting nature against him in such a merciless way, drove Tom crazy.

All he could think about was how happy they had been just a few hours ago at the campus party and how much he wanted to squeeze the life from that evil motherfucker’s throat for daring to take that happiness away from them, for putting these marks on Jensen’s body.

“Are you going to…?” Tom broke himself off again, not even sure what he was asking. Alona was already shaking her head, seemingly having guessed where his mind was wandering off to.

“I’ll just do a perfunctory check. He’ll need to sign a consent form if he wants to get a rape kit done at a clinic.”

“Then what the hell are you looking for?” Jared snapped and scowled at her.

“Finger shaped marks, bruising, hickeys. I just want to make sure I’m not missing anything.”

She rattled these things off like it wasn’t even a big deal like she was used to having a close friend and someone she had been secretly pining over for years, laid out in front of her in only his boxers and drugged to the fucking _gills_.

“Help me get him into some comfortable clothes, will you?” Alona asked, all the while running hands appraisingly over Jensen’s legs, searching them for any signs of abuse.

Tom nodded and got up with a reluctant squeeze to Jensen’s arm and gathered a couple of his favorite clothes from the closet.

“Nuh… pleaase,” Jensen’s voice shook and his arm flopped to the side, bumping weakly against Jared’s chest in a plea for help. Jared grimaced, catching Jensen’s hand with his own and holding on tight.

“Hey, easy. You’re safe, Jen. I fucking promise.”

Alona pressed her lips together and Tom could see a flicker of anger across her pretty features, the cool professional exterior showing first cracks.

“GHB goes straight to the central nervous system. Part of why it’s commonly used as a date rape drug is because victims are usually left unresisting to the assault due to the drug’s sedative effect. In about 70 percent of the cases, the victim also experiences some sort of arousal.”

She hesitated as if it was hard for her to get the words out and Tom felt himself fisting the soft material of Jensen’s sweats in his palms as he squeezed his eyes shut against a new wave of fury.

He turned around to shoot Jared an accusing look, his rage overcoming every sliver of rational thought in his mind. “You’re not going to touch him, you hear me? I swear if you even so much as think about it, I’ll—“

“You can’t be fucking serious,” Jared’s eyes turned ice cold and Mike was sure if it wasn’t for Jensen’s unconscious form in his arms, he would have gotten up and punched him in the face. “You think I’d take advantage of him like this?”

“Alright, stop it,” Alona shut them both up with a tight expression on his face. “Get a grip, both of you, and help me get him dressed.”

She yanked the clothes from Tom’s grasp and they all worked together to get Jensen comfortable in a fresh pair of loosely fitting sports pants.

Then she cleaned the bite marks on his shoulder and bandaged them up before Tom worked one of Jensen’s favorite hoodies onto his torso, bundling the unresponsive man up into a cocoon of warmth.

Alona checked his pupils with her medical penlight and measured his pulse while Jared held him, stroking comforting circles against his stomach and brushing sweaty strands of dirty blond hair from his forehead with so much affection it made the doctor falter.

“Are you two…?” she broke herself off, clearing her throat. “You’re not related are you?”

Jared’s fingers lingered on Jensen’s cheek, tracing the freckled skin with a look of open affection in his eyes. “No, we aren’t.”

She bit her lip, looking a little hurt by the admission like it took conscious effort to accept that answer and Tom idly wondered where they had met before if it had been after this Chad guy’s accident.

Then she got herself back under control, starting to pack her bag with mechanical, rushed movements. “He’s not going to remember any of this in the morning, but I strongly suggest you tell him everything you know. It’s his body- he deserves to know what happened to it.”

“Wait a minute,” Tom called her back. “What are we supposed to do, now?”

“Make sure his head is turned to the side in case he’s going to be sick. Keep him hydrated. If you notice any drastic changes in his breathing pattern or heart rate, call an ambulance.”

“How long is he going to stay like this?”

“At least a few more hours, I’d say, but it’s hard to give any specifics without knowing the dosage he took. Prepare yourselves for a long night. And when he wakes up…” she stopped, looking first at Jared, then at Tom with an unreadable expression in her eyes. “Be there for him. Talk to him. Don’t let him brush this whole thing off, okay?”

She made her way over to the door, about ready to leave again and then turned around once more to shoot Jared an intense look over her shoulder. “I don’t know what happened here, and quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to know, but Jensen deserves better than this.”

 

 

Jensen woke to the feeling of being surrounded by warmth, the soft morning light trickling in through his blinds, the linen of his bed soft and comforting around him. 

Shedding the last remnants of sleep from his mind, Jensen kept his heavy lids closed until he noticed the feeling of shifting muscle beneath him and his eyes slammed open in panic.

His drowsy mind tried to comprehend what was going on when he realized that he was practically sprawled out across Jared’s body. 

His eyelashes tickled the side of Jared’s neck and Jensen could feel the other man’s fingers draw random patterns against the stretch of heated skin that was exposed where the seam of his hoodie was riding up high on his middle. “Hey, you with me?”

Jared’s voice was barely above a whisper.

It sounded  _off_ , tentative and gentle in a way it had never been before and Jensen felt a little light-headed as he tried to wrap his head around what had happened the night before.

He couldn’t remember how they had gotten home.

Had they slept with each other?

Had he gotten so drunk that the rest of the gang had to drag him back to his dorm room?

Jensen only realized his breathing had picked up when Jared’s fingers stopped drawing comforting patterns against his skin. “It’s alright, try to calm down.”

He inched back from Jared’s chest, tried to sit up, but his limbs felt strangely uncooperative, shaky and weak like they hadn’t been used in way too fucking long, his muscles protesting at the slightest of movements.

“Wha—“

“Take it easy,” Jared shushed him, sitting up against the head post and carefully, oh so carefully, dragging Jensen along with him, steadying him as he swayed against Jared’s side.

“Wha’s goin’ on?”

Why did his tongue feel like it weighed a ton?

And why was his mind not cooperating to get the words out right?

Jensen felt a flicker of panic inside of his chest as he tried to reconnect the events of last night with his current situation, tried to bridge the gap of complete memory loss in his brain and found that he was unable to do so.

He wanted for the world to stop fucking spinning around him, but the chill that dominated the air sucked all the remaining strength from his limbs and froze whatever little brain activity he could muster.

“Close the window,” Jared looked at someone and Jensen dragged his heavy gaze over to the other end of the room, only to find Mike standing there with a worried expression on his face, dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep.

Okay. What the _actual_  fuck?

What was Mike doing in Jensen’s bedroom?

Or more precisely, what the fuck was Mike doing, watching Jensen and Jared cuddled up in Jensen’s bedroom?

“Jensen? You with us, man?” a third person chimed in from the side and Jensen recognized the voice as Chris’.

Oh god… had they had some kind of freaky gang bang or something?

Jensen groaned, shaking the idea off as suddenly as it had come because there simply wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to get him to a point where _that_ would sound like a good idea.

“What’s going on?” it took a whole lot of concentration to force the words past shaking lips and even more composure to keep from crying when Jensen noticed Tom was sitting on the foot of his mattress, looking like hell warmed over.

“Tommy?” he asked in a shaky voice, a tremor of panic setting in. “’m I dying?”

It was meant to be a joke but Jensen knew that something was wrong when none of them even smiled in response, all of their expressions set into grim lines of barely disguised worry.

He swallowed, tongue sticking to the roof of his dry mouth, a bitter tang of beer and something else still clouding his senses. “Starting to freak me out here, guys.”

“Do you remember anything from last night?”

It was Mike who finally spoke. The somber feeling of  _wrongwrongwrong_ started to spread low through Jensen’s belly, clouding his thoughts and senses.

He licked his lower lips, looked up at Jared as if the taller man held all the answers.

“We were playing pool… there’s not much after that.”

“Do you remember going to the bathroom?” Jared asked in a low tone, one of his arms still wrapped around Jensen’s middle in a protective hold.

“No. What happened? Why are y’all lookin’ at me like that?”

“Somebody slipped something into your drink, Jensen.”

The words took a while to register in Jensen’s brain.

Then they slammed home with a ferocity that stole his breath away.

A memory of being propped on a dirty porcelain bowl flashed before his mind’s eye, a strong arm slipping around him from behind, rancid breath whispering threats against his quivering spine.

_Hey there, gorgeous…Watched you bend that ass over the table…_

_Pretty boy… Like it when they struggle…_

_Fucking biker slut._

Jensen shuddered, a wave of nausea flooding him.

His brain felt like it was going to swell beyond the capacity of his skull and blinding pain erupted from somewhere behind his eyes as the memories resurfaced.

His breathing picked up and he felt blood rush to his ears, the sound of his own heartbeat deafening.

Dehydration was too obvious to ignore and he swallowed, hearing voices around him but unable to make out any specific words.

He tried to free himself from Jared’s hold, tried to shake off the other man's hands as saliva rapidly gathered in his mouth.

He swung his bare feet off the mattress to connect with the wooden floor, but it was too late, not enough time to reach the bathroom or grab the trash bin from next to his workstation.

His abdomen contracted violently and without warning, the contents of his stomach splattered across the floor next to his bed. Jensen shook as he heaved, the stench of his vomit making his nostrils flare in disgust.

He felt weak, arms shaking violently from where he propped himself up, trying with all his residual strength to keep from falling face-first into the sickening mess he had caused.

“Shit, Jensen. Are you alright?”

His throat was already sore from stomach acid, but he couldn’t stop retching, not even when his heaving resulted in bringing up small dribbles of yellow bile.

“Jesus, Jensen… let me look at you,” that was Tom’s voice, probably his fingers too, as they worked to gently lift Jensen’s face, holding him upright as he threatened to slump off the mattress in a pile of misery.

Jared was there too, but Jensen didn’t so much see him as he _felt_ the other man’s firm chest against his back, a steadying, comforting presence as he brushed the sweat-soaked bangs from Jensen’s forehead and whispered soothing words in his ear that were only meant to be heard by the two of them. “Breathe through it. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Jen.”

Jensen surveyed the dirty mess he had caused through watery eyes, barely holding himself together as the words from earlier echoed through his mind.

_Someone slipped something into your drink._

 

 

Jensen listened to all of it, every word of what happened the previous night without offering up a word in return. 

He sat quietly, almost dejectedly through the explanations of Jared finding him in that bathroom, pressed up against the dirty tiles with some asshole feeling him up.

He listened to Chris’ story about how they stole a car and called Alona, how she came here to examine him and clean his wounds, without asking any questions.

He didn’t even say anything as they told him about Jeff and about how,  _thankfully_ , Steve had found him in the nick of time, safe and sound in the backyard of his house, while his truck sat in the garage, brakes cut neatly through, courtesy of the rivaling street gang that meant business.

He listened to all of it as if it didn’t concern him, as if none of it mattered and his uncharacteristic silence was  slowly starting to freak everyone out.

“Are you hungry?” Tom offered up for what must have been the hundredth time, squeezing the base of Jensen’s shower-warm neck. “Want me to fix you a bowl of soup or something?”

Jensen winced and bit his lower lip as he shook his head.

“Maybe you should try to sleep some more? You’re still weak on your legs and—“

“I’m fine,” Jensen said curtly, shrugging Tom’s hands off with a livid expression on his face.

He wasn’t angry, not really. Just confused and disturbed and _ashamed_ , god, so fucking ashamed.

He could still feel the pressure of the guy’s body weighing him down every goddamn time he closed his eyes, could smell the faint stench of smoke and beer and the hint of ‘Old Spice’ that fucker had worn.

“Jensen, I’m just trying to—“

“Well, fucking stop it,” Jensen sent Tom a sharp look, embarrassment adding a little bit of color to his otherwise pallid face. “I’m not a three-year-old that needs babying, so the only thing you can do to make me feel better right now is giving me some goddamn space!”

“Jensen,” Tom looked hurt by the brush-off, but this was Jensen’s way of dealing, his way of gaining back a sliver of control over his own life, his own _body_.

So when he locked his jaw, eyes suspiciously wet in the dull morning light that shone in through the window, Tom gave him a small nod and backed off a little, seemingly realizing how fucking close Jensen was to losing his shit.

Jensen swallowed to reign his emotions back in, before fixating Jared with a cold stare across the dining table. “The guy- what did you do to him?”

Jared had his fingers intertwined and propped up on the table. “I shot his dick off.”

There was a beat of silence, then Mike’s eyes went wide and Tom ran a hand over his tired-looking face.

“You’re kidding, right?” Tom demanded in a huff. “Did you seriously shoot someone in the groin and leave them to die in front of a whole bar full of witnesses? How about calling the fucking police?”

“Call the police so they could save his miserable, pathetic excuse for a life and toss him into a cell with a flat screen and room service? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

Tom shoved away from the table, getting up and starting to pace the dining room. “I can’t believe this.”

Mike rubbed a hand over his tired eyes and massaged the base of his nose. Then he let out a small sigh and leaned forward in his chair, gray eyes serious, but not unkind.

“Let’s say the guy dies and someone in that bar testifies against you. That could mean up to fifteen years for aggravated assault, Jared.”

Jared snorted, rubbing some of the dried blood from his knuckles almost disinterestedly.

“You think this is funny?” Tom demanded. "Do you even know what aggravated assault means?"

“I think it’s fucking ridiculous,” Jared returned with a dangerous undertone in his voice as he leaned forward in his seat, eyes glinting like liquid fire. “Are you seriously expecting me to justify why I shot that fucker’s dick off? Mind you that we’re talking about the same son of a bitch who had _your_ friend pressed up against the dirty tiles of a bathroom stall with the intention to _fuck_ him against his will?”

“Jared,” Jensen’s voice was weak when he protested, running shaking fingers through his shower-wet hair.

He wasn’t ready to _hear_ this.

But Jared was on a roll.

“Are you trying to tell me you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing if our roles had been reversed? That you wouldn’t have made that bastard pay, if you had the chance?”

For a second, Tom’s eyes flickered away almost guiltily, then some of the determination returned to his face.

“Well, I guess that question isn’t really valid, seeing as how we would have never gotten Jensen in a situation like that in the first place,” he returned, lips pressed together in a narrow line and blue eyes filled with accusation. “I mean, are you even aware of the kind of influence you hold over him? Your best friend _and_ surrogate father nearly died as collateral damage of your reckless little gang business and now Jensen’s the next one to pay for your mistakes!”

“You shut your goddamn mouth, you son of a bitch!”  Chris growled in a threatening rumble, rolling his sleeves up in preparation for a fight as he shot up from his chair. “Jared’s a better _man_ than any of you fucking snot-nosed college brats will ever be. He’s only ever tried to protect Jensen!“

“Well, bang up job he did at that! Jensen was perfectly fine before he met you and now he’s missing exams and classes, smoking, drinking and oh yeah, getting molested by fucking perverts while all of you stood by and let it happen!"

Jared tensed, going absolutely still in his seat.

He clenched his jaw and grabbed his jacket from the back of his seat. "I don't have to listen to this."

“Jay, wait,“ Jensen hadn’t said a word in so long, it shocked all of them when he suddenly spoke up. He got up from his seat, clinging to the backrest of his chair as his knees threatened to give out under him. 

Jared stood and it took him herculean effort to turn around to face Jensen.

When he did, his eyes were full of emotion, the strain of everything that had happened in the past 24-hours visibly taking its toll on him.

“You know they’re right. I should have never gotten you involved in any of this.”

“Jared..."

"Maybe this is for the best," Jared’s smile wavered, eyes weighed down by all the possibilities of a lifetime spent together, slipping right through his fingers like every other sliver of happiness life had ever tossed at him. 

Then he turned around and left, Chris following somewhat reluctantly after him.

Jensen stared after them for a long moment, eyes filling as his heart thundered viciously in his chest.

A hand landed on his shoulder and Jensen angrily whirled around, tears in his eyes as he met Tom’s pitiful stare. “You had no goddamn _right_.”

“Jensen, I know this isn’t easy—“

“You don’t know anything! Not one goddamn thing,” Jensen stumbled towards the door, ignoring the weakness of his knees as they threatened to give out beneath the weight of his body.

He made it outside into the hallway, without as much as a backward glance, face lined with determination.

 

 

His mind was spinning, his heart racing so fast he couldn’t breathe and he knew he shouldn’t go out like this, knew he should let Jared leave, should use this whole fucking thing, everything that had happened last night as an excuse to ban Jared and the gang from his life, once and for all.

But he couldn’t.

Maybe a week or two ago, Jensen would have still been able to turn his back on Jared, but now?

Now it wasn’t even in the cards, the idea of parting ways with Jared, especially after what had happened the night before, completely unfathomable.

“Jared, wait!” his voice was raspy, hoarse from the remnants of an uneasy sleep and –god help him,  the moans and broken pleas that had been torn from his throat against his will in a drug-induced haze. “Hold on, please.”

Jared had gotten in a few seconds of lead and Jensen was still too dizzy and weak to get his limbs fully under control, he was bumping into walls and nearly tripping over his own feet in his disoriented hurry to catch up with the other man.

He wasn’t sure how he made it out of Lionel Hall and into the campus yard with all his limbs still attached, but his relief was short-lived when he stepped outside and was immediately greeted with ice cold rain drops piercing his skin.

The gray sky grumbled threateningly above him, thick black storm clouds dragged down by heavy rain and the peaceful emptiness of the parking lot was disrupted by the sudden boom of thunder.

Life had an interesting way of getting atmospheric when it was least expected.

And it wouldn’t just be rain, no… it would be a downpour as heavy as Jensen had ever seen, thick wet drops soaking clothes and building puddles on the ground.

“Jared!” He spotted Jared halfway across the parking lot and tottered forward on unsteady legs while the harsh rain kept hitting him in the face and all over his body.

His posture was weakened by the weight of the wet clothes as he stumbled across the slippery path, the dark skies shifting above him in apocalyptic chaos as the heavy rain obliterated their surroundings.

“Jared, _stop_  .”

When they were finally barely three feet apart, Jensen’s chest was heaving from exertion and his limbs were shaking violently. He felt weak and vulnerable as tiny rivulets of rain slid down along the smoothness of his pallid skin.

Jared turned slowly, but his eyes were cast to the ground between them, head dipped and wet bangs stuck to his forehead from the rain. “Get back inside, Jensen.”

“No,” Jensen’s lips were shaking but his voice was steady, his dashing green eyes unwavering as they held Jared’s gaze.

“I said get the fuck back inside.”

“Yeah,” Jensen jutted out his chin. “And I said no.”

“You have a fucking death wish or something?” Jared growled out, face twisted angrily as he stepped forward to shove Jensen’s shoulder. “What are you doing out here in this fucking weather? You shouldn’t even be on your feet, yet! ”

The light push was enough to send his balance reeling and Jensen stumbled back, his knees buckling and nearly sending him to the ground if it hadn’t been for Jared’s arms shooting out to catch him.

“Fuck, Jensen, what the hell,” Jared pulled Jensen back up, one hand slung around his middle to steady him while the other cradled his face, skimming over the rivulets of water that dripped down his freckled cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

His voice caught on the apology and they both knew Jared was no longer just talking about shoving him.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he said once more, tears in his eyes as he brushed his fingertips over the red bruising right below Jensen’s left eye, the soft swell of his bottom lip where it had been split open. "Why can't you just fucking let me go?"

“So you can run off? Pretend nothing ever happened?" Jensen asked softly. "Life doesn’t work that way.”

Jared shook his head, raindrops catching on his stubble and dripping from his chin. “What they said about me, about me being a bad influence… it’s true, Jensen. I destroy everything I fucking touch.”

“That’s not true,” Jensen denied.

“Jeff and Chad nearly got killed. What if you’re next on their fucking list? What if they come after you and I’m not there to protect you?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Jensen breathed the words out with so much trust in his gaze, so much unwavering confidence in his voice, a strong whisper drowned out by the sound of hissing rain all around them.

“You don’t fucking know that.”

“I know that without you I’d be lying in the corner of a pub’s restroom right now, most likely dead.”

Jared grimaced at the mental image, a deep shudder wrecking his spine.

“I know you would kill for me,” Jensen went on. “And that you came damn close to doing so last night.”

The rain had turned Jared’s hair into a wet, mushy mess that was wetly draped over his chiseled bone structure.

His hazel eyes were unnaturally bright, flecks of amber and muddy green running together in a play of colors.

“I know you’re scared,” Jensen went on. “Like out-of-your-mind scared and I’m right there with you, alright? Every step of the goddamn way… I just—“

The drops that washed over them were divine, each one washing away the unseen pain, doubt, and fear.

Jensen stopped, his lips shaking, his head tilted to the side as he lifted green eyes up to meet Jared’s gaze. “I just feel like we’re better off in this together than apart.”

Jared blinked, droplets of rain catching in his lashes.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Then Jared’s lips gave a tremulous twitch. “Never knew you were such a sap.”

Jensen laughed, sounding shaky and relieved. “Shut up.”

Jared took a step closer, slowly tilted Jensen’s face towards his own before leaning down and locking their lips together in a gentle kiss that had the world around them cease to exist.

Passersby and traffic slowly melted away into the inconsistent blur of the torrent that kept falling from the dark clouds above.

It felt like fate, somehow. Like this moment was meant to be.

Like every single thing that had happened to them, starting with Chad’s accident and leading on to the disastrous events of last night had gotten them to this point right here, their mutual need for each other expressed in a rebellion against the elements.

 

 

They were both soaked to the bone by the time they entered the garage from the back exit.

Jensen was a shivering mess, his hair flat against his pale skin, clothes clinging to his body almost obscenely as he shuddered against the sensation of drenched fabric.

It was like a throwback to their first meeting all these weeks ago and yet it was different, the intimacy and attraction between them now undeniable where it had mostly been awkward before.  

Jared circled Jensen’s delicate wrists with his strong fingers, cool skin sliding wetly against his pulse point as he dragged him towards a wayward ladder in the corner of the garage that led up to a spacious loft bed.

Jensen’s heart was beating so wildly he was sure Jared would be able to hear it, his nerves kicking up a little more with every rung of the ladder he climbed.

It wasn’t exactly like they had talked this through. And yet they were both hyper-aware of what this was… of what they were about to do.

Jensen reached the top of the ladder, eyeing the small, cozy-looking mattress with dark bedding lining the floor in front of him. There was a small window too, the grayish light of a gloomy day lazily filtering in from the outside, rain thrumming steadily against the cool glass like  a thousand invisible fingers.

A few empty beer cans and a dust covered stack of skin mags were littering the floor around the mattress and Jensen didn’t want to know how many other dates Jared had already dragged up here, how many people he’d fucked across the smooth linen before him.

The thought irritated him, but the brief spark of jealousy was gone the next moment when Jared wrapped an arm around him from behind and kissed the side of his neck with so much tenderness that Jensen simply _had_ to believe that whatever they shared was different from all the others.

“You okay?” Jared asked softly and Jensen managed a tentative nod in response.

Jared stepped around him, shrugging off his jacket and dropping it to the ground. Then he grabbed the hem of his soaked shirt and took it off in one fluent movement, revealing chiseled muscle beneath, covered in a fascinating array of intertwined body art.

A few wayward raindrops were slowly tracking down between the defined curves of Jared’s abs and Jensen wanted to gather them up with his tongue, to taste the saltiness of the other man’s skin beneath.

It was insane how long it had taken him to get to this point, weeks of heated staring, of stolen touches and sinful kisses.

And now it felt almost surreal, his whole body shaking at the prospect of what was to come.

“Gonna get out of these?” Jared husked, pointing at Jensen’s clothes with a small grin. “Cause I got nothing against a one-man-show, but…“

Jensen blushed vividly at that and Jared chuckled softly when the younger man fumbled to take his shirt off, leaving him naked above the waist.

They stared at each other for a moment, lost in awe and a bit of shock. Jensen’s spine quivered against Jared’s large palm as he slipped his hand up along the gentle curve of Jensen’s back, thumb tracing every bulge of his vertebrae.

“You sure about this?” Jared reached up to cup Jensen’s cheek, thumb skimming water from the freckled skin. He leaned in and then stopped mere inches from Jensen’s lips, gaze flickering between Jensen’s emerald eyes and his cupid-bow lips as if he couldn’t decide between the two. Jensen closed the distance between them, slotting their mouths together.

Jared cradled the back of his head and slowly backed them up until Jensen’s feet hit the edge of the mattress. When he stumbled, Jared caught him, wrapping strong arms around his waist to keep him from falling.

Jensen braced himself against Jared’s strong chest, palms flatly pressed against the wet skin above Jared’s beating hearts as they reluctantly broke apart. Then he gracefully sank down to the edge of the mattress, dragging the soaked jeans fabric down to Jared’s ankles in the process.

Jared stepped out of the jeans fabric that was now pooling around his thighs, before pushing Jensen back against the soft pillows and climbing down on top of him. He propped himself up on one elbow while his free hand traveled down Jensen’s bare chest to the waistband of his pants. Then he stopped, thumb gently rubbing the soft stretch of skin above Jensen’s hipbones as he felt the younger man shudder beneath him. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Jensen lifted shaking hands to trace along some of Jared’s tattoos. The feel of the younger man's hands on him, soft and gentle and so full of awe, had Jared shaking with a bone-deep surge of desire _._  "Want you to make me forget."

And Jared could do that. Would spend every second of his residual life making love to Jensen if it would help him get over what happened.

"Okay," He leaned down to press a line of open-mouthed kisses against the side of Jensen’s neck, just over the steady thrumming of his pulse point while his hands worked to pull off the rest of their clothes, jeans and boxers carelessly falling to the ground beside them.

When they were both naked, Jared grabbed Jensen’s hand and twined their fingers together before leaning in for another kiss, slow and languid like they had all the fucking time in the world.

Jensen closed his eyes, a soft whimper catching in the back of his throat when Jared’s faint stubble rubbed over the slight bruising on his cheek bone. They deepened the kiss, exploring one another’s mouth like it was the first time, nipping and biting until they were both dizzy from lack of air and their lips were swollen and tingling.

Jared’s hands wandered down to the swell of Jensen's ass and he leaned back a little to meet the younger man's eyes before pressing their hips flush together. Jensen gasped, bucking off the mattress at the sensation of their dicks sliding together, delicious friction with no barrier between them. “Shit, Jared.”

His hips started moving on their own account, a deep blush rising to his cheeks at the soft noise that escaped him when Jared’s fingers dug a little harder into his ass, starting to grind his own hips forward in small, circular movements. Jensen tossed his head back in bliss as they moved against each other, finding an easy rhythm. Sweat had started gathering on their temples and Jared leaned down to lick some of the salty pearls from the small dip of Jensen’s throat.

There were no words to describe what it felt like, each one of Jensen’s nerves was ablaze with pleasure and they hadn’t even _started_ yet. “Touch me, Jay, c’mon.”

When Jared took his fucking time, hand moving almost tortuously slow over his quivering stomach and past his waist line, Jensen decided that enough was enough and flipped them over, straddling Jared’s hips.

“Getting impatient?” Jared grinned up at him wolfishly, enjoying the sight and feel of Jensen on top of him; chest glistening wetly in the grayish hue of the storm brewing outside, hair a wild mess and pink lips puffy from all the kissing they had done.

Jensen adjusted his hips, squirming a little to find a comfortable position and Jared hissed at the sensation, head tipped back and eyes squeezed shut when Jensen’s hand found his hardening shaft and gave an experimental squeeze. “Fuck, Jensen… god damnit.”

Jared arched up from the mattress when Jensen flicked his thumb across the head of his leaking dick and started to jerk him with steady flicks of his wrist, setting up a punishing rhythm. He leaned forward to place a hot trail of kisses over the outline of inked feathers across Jared’s chest, looking up to meet Jared’s blown pupils when he curled his tongue around Jared’s nipple. “Guhh, Jen...”

Jensen grinned and moved down to Jared's navel, circling it a few times with his tongue before he plunges down into the slight dip.

"Fuck," Jared’s eyes rolled back in his head, hips jerking forward almost desperately. "Stop playing around."

Jensen nipped at the jut of Jared’s hipbone and then looked up to meet Jared’s glassy eyes over the expense of his quivering stomach.

Jared’s pink lips were sinfully parted, hazel eyes staring down at Jensen in a mixture of awe and desire. 

It was about the hottest thing Jensen had ever seen and he didn’t even think before licking his pouty lips and wrapping them around Jared’s cock. He circles the shaft a couple of times before taking it down as far as it would go and letting the walls of his throat flutter around Jared’s girth. Humming low in his throat, Jensen bobbed up and down a few times, tongue darting expertly across the tip of Jared's mushroom head to gather up beads of bitter precome.

“Shit,” Jared tossed his head back against the cushions, groaning low in his throat and digging his fingers almost painfully into Jensen’s wet spikes to pull him off with an obscene little suction noise. “Stop, Jen, hold on.”

“What?” For a panic-filled second, Jensen’s heart kicked up at the thought that he might have done something Jared didn’t like, but then the older man yanked him up for a passionate kiss, the heady taste of come spreading between them as Jared gruffly pulled his legs apart and rolled back on top of him.

“You keep that shit up and this will be over before it really started,” Jared huffed out in a shaky laugh before kissing Jensen again. They broke apart, panting and dazed, Jared staring down at him with questioning eyes as his fingers slipped down the crease of his ass.

Jensen gave a jerky nod and Jared pressed a last, lingering kiss against Jensen’s mouth before grabbing a half-finished bottle of lube from somewhere beneath the mattress.

He flicked the cap open almost hastily, squeezing a glob of the cold liquid onto his palms when Jensen reached out to circle his strong wrist, eyes imploring as he looked up. “Jared wait.”

“What?” Jared panted out, an instant frown on his face, almost like he was afraid Jensen might have thought better of it. 

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Jensen bit his lower lip, fighting the stinging sensation of tears when his palm slipped down to cradle his flat stomach. “Promise me not to freak out?”

"You're not sick are you?" Jared asked, worry lacing his words. 

"No, I'm..." Jensen opened his mouth, closed it again and bit his bottom lip. “I’m a carrier.”

Jared blinked lazily, eyes flickering from Jensen’s stomach to his eyes and then back down to his stomach.

Then his features smoothed out, every trace of worry slowly vanishing from his face and turning into something much softer, much more affectionate. 

He leaned down, large palm settling over the taut skin on Jensen’s stomach before he pressed a quick kiss to the soft flesh just below Jensen’s belly button. "That's it?"

Jensen’s lids fluttered at the sensation of soft lips against his sensitive skin. He used to not like it when people touched his stomach, used to hate it when someone looked at him like he was fragile, but it was different with Jared.

There was no belittlement or disgust in Jared’s eyes. Only acceptance. Awe.  _Worship._

“You don’t mind?” Jensen asked because he needed to be absolutely sure.

"It's a part of you," Jared said with a small shrug. “Just one more thing to make you special.”

Jensen felt  a surge of gratitude for this guy who was so flawed and yet so perfect, so rough and yet so gentle, this guy who had turned his whole life upside down and still managed to surprise him a little more every day.

“I’m on birth control… I just… I wanted you to know—“ Jensen’s nervous rambling was cut short when Jared shut him up with a kiss.

“Just means we’ll have to be more careful.“

And that was it. All there was to say. 

Jared brushed his slick fingers over his hole, capturing his broken gasp with his lips and swallowing the soft sound of surprise that followed. He nipped lightly at Jensen’s bottom lip before he canted the man’s hips up and spread his thighs wide. He circled the furled muscle twice before dipping inside, tip of his finger sliding smoothly along the inner walls of Jensen’s muscle.

Jensen made a broken sound as his hips rocked back, unbidden, into the sensation. His body was flushed pink, pearls of sweat dripping slowly along the hard curves of his muscle as he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed back against Jared’s fingers.

He was gorgeous like this, breathtakingly beautiful and Jared’s own hands were shaking as he worked Jensen open, pressing kisses to the soft insides of Jensen’s thighs as he hitched them higher.

He hadn’t taken this much time prepping someone since that time when he had popped that teenage clerk’s cherry in the storage room of a 7/11. And even back then, it had been quick and functional, lacking all the attention it took to study someone’s body and see what made the other person work. 

But this was different because it was _Jensen._

And Jared wanted this.

Wanted it with every sliver of his heart, with every fiber of his being.

And above all, above the rising doubt and residual guilt and little devil on his shoulder that kept screaming _no bad wrong_ ,  Jared wanted to make this perfect for Jensen, wanted to rattle the very core of the other man’s soul and put it back together with his bare hands.

“C’mon,” Jensen gasped out loudly, his voice a strangely hoarse from his earlier moans and Jared slid his fingers free with a last, scissoring motion, the sensation of Jensen clenching tightly around him sending bolts of desire straight to his cock. “’M ready, Jay. Need you. Want to feel you.”

Jensen looked so gorgeous like this, skin flushed pink and all slick with sweat.

Jared slid up Jensen’s body, panted breaths leaving his mouth. He slipped the condom on with an ease that came from years of practice and Jensen watched his every move, eyes nearly black with desire when he felt the blunt head of Jared’s dick lining up against him.

“Go slow, okay? It's been a while,” Jensen’s voice was shaking, a slight tremor in his tone and Jared leaned down to capture his mouth in one last kiss before slowly pressing forward, inch by fucking inch until he was sheathed in velvety heat. A hoarse whimper caught in Jensen’s throat and Jared broke their kiss when he noticed the younger man’s discomfort, forcing himself to still and waiting for some of the pain to abide.

“Keep breathing,” he grunted, the blissful sensation of a vice-like grip around him nearly driving him crazy with the urge to slam forward. Jensen’s eyes were squeezed shut, fingers digging painfully into Jared’s back as he bottomed out, strong hips snug against the round curve of Jensen’s ass.

They both took a few shuddering breaths, lost in the sensation of their bodies becoming one. Then Jensen blinked his eyes back open, tears caught in the long curve of his lashes and let out a shuddering breath. “Move.”

Jared didn't have to be told twice. He waited for their eyes to meet before he shifted forward with a slow forward rotation of his hips. Jensen gasped out and Jared leaned down to suck at the junction of his sweat-slick throat in an effort to distract him from the discomfort.

He pulled out almost all the way before thrusting back in, slow and smooth, the friction and slow pace almost enough to drive them both insane.

“Feel so fucking good around me,” Jared breathed, blanketing Jensen’s smaller body with his own. "Knew you'd feel incredible."

Jensen hissed and slid his palms around to press flat against Jared's chest. Jared grabbed them and stretched Jensen’s arms out above his head, fingers curling together as he pressed them down hard against the mattress.   
  
Jensen whimpered and then relaxed, going boneless against the bed and surrendering to Jared. And Jared wanted to- wanted to show Jensen how much he was fucking cared for.  
  
He pulled out torturously slow and slid right back in, angling straight for Jensen’s prostate.

Jensen squeezed his eyes shut and moaned brokenly, clutching at Jared's fingers where they were holding his wrists down against the bed. Jared leaned in to gather the sweat at the nape of Jensen’s neck with his tongue and then sucked a bruising mark into the skin while he kept grinding his hips forward at a slow, lazy pace designed to make Jensen fall apart underneath him.

Jared canted Jensen’s hips a little higher and changed the angle on his next forward-thrust, grinning a little when Jensen’s mouth and eyes opened wide in a voiceless scream, neck corded from the blinding sparks of pleasure surging through his veins. 

A broken keening noise left the younger man’s lips and Jared basked in the sound of it, grinning a little.

Jensen threw his head back and arched off the mattress, one hand moving up to tangle with Jared’s wet curls while the other fisted the dark linen. “Oh god, Jared. Right there—”

Whatever else Jensen was about to say was lost in a shockwave of  _goodfuckyeah_  and then he lost the ability to talk, back arching off the mattress when Jared gripped his hips  and slammed forward in long, sure strokes, quickly picking up momentum.

With the way they had both been worked up before this whole thing even started, Jared had known neither of them would last long. So it didn’t exactly come to a surprise when Jensen’s dick started leaking pre-come between them, breath catching in his throat as he gasped for air. “Fuck, Jay. I-I’m gonna—“

“Not yet,” Jared grunted, words jagged and raw against the backdrop of their joined pants of air and Jensen’s wrecked whimpers. He slammed their mouths together, teeth clashing loudly as he started moving faster, rocking Jensen harder into the mattress.

Jensen wasn’t even aware of the moans that streamed steadily from his throat, rough from overuse, stomach muscle twitching and shivering from the strain of putting up with Jared’s thrusts.

“Jared, I _can’t_ —“ Jensen murmured brokenly, pleading tone to his fucked-out voice and Jared knew exactly what Jensen needed when he reached down to wrap his hand around Jensen’s dick.

“Yeah, you can,” he slowed his movement until the drag of his erection was at a near-maddening pace. Jensen bucked up into the sensation of fingers curled around his erection, but Jared tightened his fingers to keep him from coming instead of jacking him to completion.

“Want you to come just like this, just to the feel of me inside of you.”

Jensen was beyond the point of coherency as he whimpered, beads of hot sweat rolling down the groove of his back as he rocked back into the punishing, rhythm Jared had set up. He was _incoherent_ with pleasure, a string of nonsensical words slipping from kiss-swollen lips and Jared had never seen anything hotter in his entire life.

He realized he would never be able to return to simple hookups after this, realized that nobody would ever come close to the sight and sensation of _Jensen_ all around him.

Fucking his tongue into the younger man’s pliant mouth, Jared released Jensen’s cock and swallowed the strangled cry from Jensen’s lips when he came, hot come splashing all over their chests.

Jared picked up his pace, slamming forward in several more thrusts as Jensen’s muscle tightened hard around him and sent him over the edge as well.

“Goddammit, Jensen, _fuck_ ,” he grunted, a wave of electrical heat surging through his entire body as black spots danced across his vision.

He came so hard it felt like every goddamn fucking rational thought had spilled from his brain and then collapsed on top of Jensen in an awkward, sweaty heap.

Waiting for his frantic heartbeat to slow down, Jared lifted himself up on shaky elbows before slowly pulling out of Jensen and eliciting a soft hiss in return.

“You good?” Jared gently lifted Jensen’s chin and leaned in for a languid kiss, tongues tangling almost sloppily as they both came down from their respective highs.

Jensen nodded weakly and sought out Jared’s lips, kissing him again and clutching at him as his hips jerked with aftershocks.

He pulled back to look at the glimmer of Jensen’s emerald eyes, sparks of mossy green catching in the fading sunlight.

A tear had caught in Jensen's thick, girly lashes and his eyes were still glistening, but Jared knew that it was only the heightened emotionality of everything that had happened.

The intensity of the look they shared stole his breath away and made him realize, not for the first time that day, how very different all of this had felt from every other person Jared had ever slept with. And how much fucking _better_ it had been.   

“This your take on ‘going slow’?” Jensen nipped at Jared’s bottom lip. He was trying to keep a straight face, but Jared could see the lazy smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Jared’s mouth curled into a grin. “You’re damn right it is. Been going easy on you, kid.”

He reached around to run possessive fingers over Jensen’s swollen hole, still slick from the lube they had used. He let his fingers catch on the puffy rim, dipping one of them inside without much resistance. 

Jensen winced and Jared quieted him with a reassuring kiss, rubbing a soothing circle against the smooth curve of his ass, before withdrawing. “Seriously, though. You good?”

He grabbed a discarded pack of half-finished Chesterfield from the floor next to the mattress and lit up two cigarettes before handing one to Jensen.

Jensen blinked, fingers shaking as he lifted the cigarette to his lips and took a long drag.

“Yeah,” His face smoothed out a little and it was hard to tell whether it was from his post-orgasmic high or the nicotine, as smoke curled in the air between them.

Jared liked to think at least half of that blissful expression was _his_ doing.

“Never been better,” Jensen added dopily, turning around to settle his intense gaze on Jared’s propped up form next to him.

Jared’s smile faltered a little when his eyes flickered down to the violent bruising and hickeys around Jensen’s neck. He had tried to evade the marks as best as possible, had tried to keep his focus on Jensen’s face instead, but now the marks were practically staring back at him from the freckled skin like silent accusations, impossible to ignore.

A bitter reminder of how dangerously close he had come to losing Jensen the night before.

Of how dangerous this whole thing between them still was, of how _fragile._

Jared stubbed his cigarette out, never having been much of a smoker, before leaning down to cover one of the bite marks with his mouth.

Jensen tensed almost instantly but he didn’t protest, just tilted his head to the side to grant Jared more access. “What are you doing?“

"Making you forget," Jared sucked the tender flesh into his mouth, lifting his heavy-lidded gaze up to watch Jensen’s reaction as he worshiped every bit of skin around Jensen’s neck, tracing kisses along the fluttering line of Jensen’s pulse point until every last one of the violent marks was covered by his own.

When he finally withdrew, lips glistening in the dusty twilight of the room, Jensen’s eyes were soft with emotion. “Thank you.”

"For what?"

"Saving me."

Jared pulled the covers up around them, wrapping a protective arm around Jensen’s trim waist as their legs tangled loosely beneath the blanket. 

He had never been particularly affectionate after sex, but this right there, the feel of Jensen’s heartbeat right next to his own, was something he could get used to.

Jensen fingertips were tracing the dark lines of Jared's phoenix tattoo with something akin to reverence.

“You never have to thank me for that,” Jared caught his wrist and waited for the younger man to meet his gaze, intensity crackling in the air between them. “Not ever."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freaking finally the boys get some action, huh? Granted, it was a little vanilla, but they'll have their wicked ways with each other soon enough! xD Sorry for the slow pace, but I felt like they needed some time to deal with what happened. Drop me a note if you can spare the time!! Reviews are love <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for explicit sexual content. NSFW

** **

** **

 

**Open Road  
Chapter 14**

Jensen was sprawled across Jared’s chest, dark lashes fanned out over freckled skin and hair matted down against his forehead as he slept.

Pale sunlight was pouring in from the open blinds, falling shaded over Jensen’s parted lips, over the numerous hickeys littering his neck and it did something to Jared, brought out a sense of possessiveness, of _ownership_ , he didn’t even know he was capable of. 

He ran fingers over Jensen’s relaxed features, tenderly tracing his lips, his cheek bones, the curved line of his brows until the younger man began to stir under the feather-light graze of his fingertips. 

“Stop it,” Jensen muttered sleepily, nuzzling his face deeper into Jared’s neck to escape the tender ministrations. The kid was a sweaty, pliant weight against him, breath warm as it ghosted over Jared’s tattooed neck.

“Getting shy on me?” Jared chuckled, carding his long fingers through the younger man’s soft hair. “And here I was, thinking I fucked the bashfulness right out of you.”

“You’re a perv,” Jensen huffed out a tired laugh, lifting a hand to cover his face, an adorable flush crossing his features. “Stop staring. There’s dried drool on my face.”

Trust Jensen to get embarrassed over a little bit of drool, when his entire body was covered in come.

“That supposed to turn me off?” Jared curled his fingers in Jensen’s hair and pulled him up into a deep kiss, tongues tangling lazily together. His palm settled on Jensen’s waist, thumb running possessive little circles over the jut of his hipbone while Jensen arched up into the touch, angling his head to the side to deepen the kiss.

“Jay,“ The word was a hot, thick whisper against Jared’s mouth as they broke apart, their foreheads coming to rest against each other.

“How are you even real?” Jared breathed out, letting his mouth slide to trail a sloppy line of kisses down Jensen’s throat, tongue tracing hot patterns against the rapid beat of Jensen’s heart beneath the soft skin. “So fucking hot.”

Jensen bared his neck submissively, sucking in a sharp breath when Jared’s tongue swirled over the jut of his collarbone. He shivered at the sensation, blood pulsing quickly through his body and hips bucking forward against Jared’s thigh.

Jared’s fingers dipped into the cleft of his ass and Jensen hissed; whole body tensing. He tried to hide it, but Jared could see the slight wince when he brushed his fingers over Jensen’s hole, still swollen and sensitive in the aftermath of their earlier lovemaking.

Jared pulled back with a sigh, drinking in the expression of confusion that flickered across Jensen’s ocean green eyes.

“What?” Jensen frowned, his hands wandered down to tug the duvet up around his waist. “Why did you stop?”

“You’re sore,” Jared gave back softly because there was no way he was going to fuck Jensen when there was a chance of hurting him in the process.

“It’s not that bad,“ Jensen muttered, gaze flickering to the side as his blush intensified.

Jared swallowed. "When you said it’s been a while—“

The younger man kept his gaze carefully averted, cheeks hot with embarrassment.

Jared had never really been a nosy person.

It wasn’t in his nature.

It had never really bothered him what other people did or did not do.

But with Jensen, everything was different. Even if Jensen’s sex life most certainly didn’t concern him, Jared simply couldn’t let it go. 

He felt like this was important somehow, for both of them.

“I thought you and Matt—”

“We never actually…” Jensen stopped himself and took a slow breath. “It was hands and he blew me a couple of times. “

Jared swallowed, fingers curling into fists by his side.

He had always assumed that Jensen and Matt had been together in every sense of the word.

But he wasn’t going to deny how fucking relieved he was to find that Matt had never gotten to see or feel Jensen the way Jared had. That whatever had gone down between them had never been quite enough for Jensen to let his protective guard down around Matt like he did with Jared. That Matt had never gotten all of Jensen.

Even if the thought of that bastard having his mouth and hands all over Jensen was enough of an image to send sparks of fury through Jared’s veins.           

Jensen seemed to notice the sudden tension in Jared’s shoulders and bit his lower lip. “I guess I wasn’t into him as much as I thought when it started.”

“And before? I mean, you didn’t… you’re not—“ The question slipped from his lips before he could hold it back. Because even lost in his own pleasure, Jared had noticed the way Jensen’s fingernails had dug into his back and the way his features had been torn into a grimace, the way his chest hitched for breath as he tried to adjust to the pain of the intrusion.

He had felt how fucking tight Jensen was and in how much discomfort the younger man had been before pleasure had replaced it and he had slept with enough virgins to recognize the signs.

“You weren’t my first, if that’s what you mean,” Jensen returned softly.  “Little too late for that.”

And yeah, in hindsight, Jensen had been way too sure in his movements, too confident in the sinful thrust of his hips, meeting Jared’s rhythm with a practiced ease, an air of familiarity to it all that couldn’t possibly be the one of a first-timer.

“I guess I just don’t… if my heart isn’t in it, I just can’t—” Jensen shrugged and then winced in shame.

“C’mere,” Jared slid the blankets off of Jensen’s naked body and snaked an arm around his waist. He flipped the younger man over and elicited a shocked yelp that ended in a bout of soft laughter. “Jay, what—“

“Shh,” Jared spread Jensen’s legs apart as far as possible, running his large hands up his flank to the soft curve of his ass and feeling the slight tremor of muscles beneath his palms.

“What are you doing?“ Jensen tried to shoot Jared a look over his shoulder and then sucked in a sharp breath when the taller man pressed him down against the mattress with a firm hand to the small of his back, holding him in place.

“I haven’t done this in a while,” Jared pulled Jensen’s ass cheeks apart, kneading the firm flesh with his palms. “It might suck, fair warning.”

Jared highly doubted it. He had always been skilled with his tongue. But it seemed only fair to offer up something in return for the things Jensen had told him earlier, to show the younger man that there was nothing to be insecure or shy about. That there were things Jared hadn’t done in a while, either. Things he didn’t do with everyone because they were more personal. Too intimate.

“Jay,“ Jensen sounded like he was about to protest but whatever he wanted to say next was lost in a ragged moan when Jared blew out a long breath against the dark crease of Jensen’s hole, watching it clench and flutter under the unexpected attention.

“Relax,” Jared chuckled, his palms running up Jensen’s thighs and over the perky globes of his ass before he leaned in to lick a deliberate stripe from Jensen’s balls to the tip of his spine, eliciting a broken off gasp of pleasure and shock.

“Nghh, god, Jay what—“ A violent shiver wracked Jensen’s spine and his thighs tensed on instinct, trying to close, but Jared pushed them even further apart, holding the younger man trapped in place.

“Keep ‘em spread or I’m gonna have to tie you down,” he husked out, grinning to himself when Jensen’s breath hitched in unabashed arousal.

_God, the things he was going to do to the kid._

He didn’t have any intentions to actually hog-tie Jensen to the headboard (yet) but it was good to know that the thought of a little dirty play got Jensen just as excited as Jared.

Besides, spread legs were kind of essential for the whole getting fucked up the ass thing.

Jared had never believed in shame or bashfulness when it came to sex. It was all about making each other feel good, exploring one another’s bodies without thought or inhibitions. It was shutting one’s brain off and just going with what felt good.

“Fuck, look at you,” Jared sat back on his haunches for a moment and allowed himself to look at Jensen, let his eyes travel over the muscular arc of his quivering thighs, to the dip of his slightly bent knees, up between his legs to the hint of soft balls and the flutter of his glistening hole. “All spread out and eager to get down and dirty, aren’t you?”

Unable to resist any longer, Jared lowered his head once more and let his tongue tease the rim for a second before dipping the tip inside the tight ring of muscle.

Jensen’s reaction was instantaneous, his whole body jolted off the mattress as a loud groan was wrung from his throat. Jared steadied himself on the back of Jensen’s thighs, and delved in deeper, trying to get as far as he could.

He flicked his tongue expertly as his fingers tightened against Jensen’s skin.

He thought about how he was going to leave bruises, the print of his fingers outlined against freckled thighs like his personal stamp of ownership and it made him fuck his tongue into Jensen a little harder.

“Ahh, shit, Jared don’t—“ Jensen groaned, the tail end of his words muffled as he pushed his face into the pillows.

The sheets rustled and Jared knew without looking that Jensen was gripping them with his fingers, hips undulating against Jared’s face in an effort to pull him in.

Jared’s jaw was aching and saliva was trickling down his chin, the impossibly tight, vice-like grip of Jensen around his tongue and the muffled little noises he was making, enough to spur him on.

The musky taste of sweat and salt and Jensen was clouding all of his senses and the line between gross and filthy hot had long been crossed in his mind.

“Jared, Jay… oh god… _please_ —“ Jensen was writhing on his tongue like it was the best fucking thing he’d ever felt and Jared knew if he didn’t stop there and then, nothing was going to keep him from flipping Jensen over and fucking him within a goddamn inch of his life.

He wanted to mark the kid up in every goddamn way possible, wanted the whole fucking world to see that Jensen was his.

He wanted to blow Jensen’s fucking mind and ruin him for every other guy to come because nobody would ever compare to the way Jared had made him feel.

The thought was enough to make his dick twitch with the need to come. 

Jared pulled off with a slick little pop that would have doubtlessly made Jensen blush if he wasn’t too out of it. He gave Jensen’s ass a playful smack that had the kid’s breath hitching before sealing his mouth over Jensen’s pucker and sucking at the oversensitive flesh.

Jensen keened and jolted up from the mattress, his orgasm slamming into him like a truck. He stiffened, muscles gone absolutely rigid as he came on a hoarse shout.

Jared soothed him with slow licks to the sensitive skin, before carefully turning Jensen’s pliant body over and running his fingers through the dirty mess on Jensen’s quivering stomach.

Jensen was barely conscious, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to get his breathing back under control. “Oh god… f-fuck… what was— how did you—“

Jared couldn’t help but laugh a little at Jensen's post-orgasmic incoherency. “Practice.”

He wasn’t usually this giving when it came to sex, but he had picked up a trick or two over the years.

And with Jensen, he simply couldn’t help himself.

Seeing the other man fall apart was easily the hottest thing Jared had ever experienced and for the first time in, well, pretty much _ever_ , Jared didn’t even expect anything in return.

“You’re fucking gorgeous like this,” Jared exhaled, drawing random patterns across the come on Jensen’s stomach, thinking about the fact that Jensen was a carrier, that he could grow life in his belly, that one day, there could be a little girl or boy with Jensen’s freckles and his bottle green eyes in this world.

And Jared sure as hell didn’t know how to interpret the flood of warmth spreading in his belly, the slight sting of longing in his chest when he imagined the hard muscle beneath his fingertips softened and rounded with the swell of a tiny baby bump. Jensen all knocked up and claimed and fucking beautiful with the pregnancy glow working in his favor.

It was an odd thought. One that Jared couldn’t really understand, nor did he want to further explore it. Because he wasn’t exactly father material and he didn’t even know any children, much less had he ever planned on having kids of his own.

Deciding to shove the thought away, Jared leaned down to slowly lick Jensen’s come from his hand, sucking one finger after another into his mouth and chasing every last bit of bitterness away until they were clean again.

He watched Jensen through hooded eyes as he did it, making sure the other man caught every second of the show he was putting on.

Predictably, Jensen’s chest stuttered at the sight, pupils blown wide with lust. “Shit, Jay, so fucking hot.”

Jared grinned before leaning down for a slow kiss- the bitter taste of come spreading between them as their tongues slid together.

His own cock was still hard and throbbing between them when Jensen’s fingers wrapped around him, jerking him off with a few rapid flicks of his wrist.

Jared muffled a low grunt against Jensen’s mouth, adding to the mess on Jensen’s body before they both collapsed to the mattress.

“I feel like I got hit by a fucking truck,” Jensen ran shaky fingers through his hair, looking positively debauched.

Jared let out a soft laugh. “Well, buckle up, cause I'm still going easy on you.”

Jensen laughed softly, eyes shining and Jared felt something tighten in his chest to a point where it was almost painful to breathe.

“Yeah?” Jensen bit his bottom lip. “What’s next? A freight train?”

Jared’s gaze turned dark at that, mischievous twinkle to them as he propped himself up on one arm.

“What’s next… is me bending you over every fucking surface in this entire garage and fucking that tight little ass of yours until you can’t sit straight for a month,” he eyed Jensen through a hooded gaze, licking his lower lip and not leaving any doubt about the intention behind his words. “What’s next is my dick buried so deep in you, you’ll be able to _taste_ it.”

“Jesus Christ, Jared,” Jensen groaned, breath quickening against his will as the words painted dirty images in his mind. “I’m gonna run around with a hard-on all day.”

Jared's dick twitched because the thought of Jensen sitting in his prissy little college class and squirming in his seat because he was missing the feel of Jared’s fat cock inside of him? Damn if it wasn’t an image to fantasize about.

Just as Jared was about to point it out, the door to the garage was thrown open, causing Jensen to jump a little in shock as footsteps and voices suddenly filled the room, the rustle of clothes and the dull thud of something (probably a bag or a jacket) hitting the floor echoing through the garage.

“Yo, Jaybird,” Chris’ voice rang out, followed by the gleeful giggle of a female. Katie. “You show Jenny a good time?”

Jensen’s cheeks turned a dark shade of purple, the mortification evident on his face as he turned panicked eyes onto Jared.

“Fuck off, Chris,” Jared yelled in a gruff voice, running a hand through his thick hair as he started to gather up clothes from the ground. They were still damp from the rain and Jared cringed a little at having to put them on.

The door to the garage was opening again, this time with a rusty squeak and Jared sighed, already suspecting who was next.

“The fuck are you two doing, lounging around in the garage when you should be preparing the front store for tomorrow?”

Genevieve.

Jensen flopped back against the pillows, throwing an arm across his face to hide the embarrassment that was so evident in his expression.

“Oh that’s alright,” Katie gleefully supplied. “I’m sure Jared did enough prepping for one day, didn’t you, Jare?”

Jared squeezed his eyes shut against a rising headache and let out a brief sigh before slipping on his boxers. He tossed Jensen his own shirt, simply because it wasn’t as wet as Jensen’s and then laughed at the younger man’s fumbled attempts to straighten his hair and wipe the dried come from his entire body.

“You know that’s useless, right? They’re gonna know what we did, one way or another.”

Jensen just shot him a glower and Jared’s grin widened because Jensen couldn’t possibly look more fucked out if he tried. His hair was a mess, his pupils were still blown, his cheeks flushed and there were bite marks and hickeys littering the area around his neck and shoulders.

Even if the gang didn’t know what it meant if one of them used the loft bed, there was no denying that they had slept with each other. 

The rumble of a nearing motorcycle echoed through the yard from outside just as Jared was about to wiggle into his wet jeans. He snorted.

Just their fucking luck for the whole damn crew to arrive at the same fucking time.

“What's going on?” Steve asked as he entered the garage.

“Enjoying Jared and Jensen’s walk of shame.”

Steve snorted. “Don’t you think we’ve got more important shit to worry about than the two of them fucking?”

“No,” Katie protested vehemently. “Shut up, Steve. Don’t ruin this for me.”

Jared let out a slow breath and shot Jensen an apologetic look over the mattress.

Next time they were definitely going to fuck somewhere private.

In a room, that could be locked from the inside.

A bathroom stall.

Or a storage closet.

Or, well, you get the idea.

Jared wiped a smudge of dried saliva from Jensen’s cheek and draped his own leather jacket around the other man’s back to cover up the worst of the hickeys. “Okay?”

Jared could see the insecurity and embarrassment in Jensen’s whole posture, from the tension in his shoulders to the slight tremor of his fingers. He was afraid to face the gang after they had seen him at his weakest, drugged and undressed and abused. Discarded like a fucking ragdoll. But Jensen was wrong if he thought the gang was going to look at him any different just because of what happened to him. If anything, it had brought them all closer together.

“C’mon,” Jared winked at Jensen and dragged him towards the ladder.

Chris and Katie started cheering and cat-calling as soon as they stepped into their line of vision and even Steve chimed in with a reluctant grin on his face.

“Alright, alright, cut the shit guys,” Jared raised his palms, wishing he’d been able to get a quick shower before everyone had arrived and maybe a blowjob, cause _damn_ but Jensen was good at those.

“About fucking time,” Chris pulled Jared in for a rough tousle of his hair and then grimaced when he caught the musky whiff of stale sweat and cologne that clung to his skin. “Jesus, you reek of sex.”

Katie passed Jared by and went straight for Jensen, wrapping him into an overly enthusiastic hug. “I’m so fucking glad you’re alright. I mean you are alright, aren’t you?”

She barely gave him any time to answer, her hands running over every available spot of Jensen’s body, brushing through his hair, over his face- down along his arms like she was searching him for hidden injuries. “You’ve got no clue how worried we were.”

Jensen gave her a soft little smile, carefully untangling himself from her searching fingers. “I’m fine, Katie. No need to worry.”

“You sure you’re good, man?” Steve chimed in from the side and then grimaced a little when a thought occurred to him. “And I’m not talking about Jared' monster dick.”

Jensen blushed even harder. “Uh, yeah, thanks. I-I’m good.”

Chris pulled Jensen in for a hug of his own, brief but no less affectionate. “You were pretty queasy back at the dorms. Just wanna make sure you’re back on your feet.”

“Guys, I’m fine, seriously,” Jensen felt humbled by their concern.

“Does that mean that Jared’s dick has magical healing powers?” Katie deadpanned, mischief twinkling in her eyes.

Jared gave her a stern look. “Cut him some slack, alright?” 

“Sure thing, boss,” Katie winked at him, not looking all too apologetic.

“Where are Ty and Chase?” Jared asked, frowning a little as if their absence only just occurred to him.

“Hospital,” Genevieve came back from the front store with a dirty rag slung across her shoulder. “They weren’t sure if his ankle was sprained or broken.”

She still looked pissed and Jared was pretty sure he knew why. “Jensen could have checked for a sprain.”

Genevieve snorted. “Yeah, well, Jensen was drugged to the gills so I highly doubt he would have been able to tell the difference. Besides, Chad called in earlier to say he was going to sign himself out this afternoon.”

Jared’s eyes narrowed, hackles rising at the derogatory tone in Genevieve’s tone. But he was beyond the point of trying to set her straight.

“And what about Jeff? I thought he was gonna be on the same ride with you. Where the fuck is he?”

Steve shrugged. “He said there was something he needed to take care of- said he was gonna come here straight after. You know how he gets...”

“I know he gets fucking reckless when nobody’s with him,” Jared cursed under his breath. “I can’t believe you just left him there.”

“I’m sorry, man, I didn’t think—“

“Yeah you didn’t,” Jared snorted and made a beeline for the back entrance of the garage. “I’m gonna go find him before he does something stupid.”

“Stupid?” Jensen stumbled after Jared, fingers tightening in Jared’s shirt to get him to stop. “Jay, hold on a second. Where are you even going?”

“Back to the house.”

“I’ll come with you,” Chris protested, already crossing the garage to join the gang leader, but Jared shook his head. “No, you won’t. I need to talk to Jeff, alone. You’ll stay and get your lazy asses back to work, you got me? We can’t afford another day off from business. And you’ll keep an eye on Jensen.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Jensen scoffed.

“Tough luck. You’re not leaving this garage until I get back."

“You can’t tell me what to do,“ Jensen protested, steeling himself for yet another fight.

“Yes, I can and you wanna know why?” Jared’s eyes narrowed. “Cause there's a whole bunch of fuckers out there who are just waiting for the next opportunity to get a drop on us and unfortunately that makes you a target. So you’re going to sit tight until I get back here with Jeff, you understand me? I swear to god, Jensen, this isn’t something you want to fight me on.”

Jensen opened his mouth to protest, eyes shining with defiance, but then he shut it again, thinking better of it. He swallowed, unclenching his jaw long enough to force the words out. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Jared repeated in a hollow voice, looking a little relieved. Then he pulled Jensen close for one last, lingering kiss. “I’ll be back."

“You better,” Jensen breathed out as he watched Jared vanish through the door.

 

 

“So which one do you want me to do?”

Jensen was straddling the worn seat of the Black Lightning, balancing his leather-bound sketchbook on his lap and toweling off his shower, wet spikes with his free hand.

He was wearing a spare set of Jared’s work clothes, a pair of ripped jeans, the threadbare fabric pooling around his trim waist as he retraced the thick pencil lines of the sketch before him. He had hopped in the shower right after Jared had left, washing away the evidence of the previous night. And now that everybody was back to work, Jensen had decided he might as well use his "curfew" to work on the project.

The work would be a welcome distraction from the fact that Jared was out there somewhere, facing off with the Reapers and most likely getting himself into serious trouble.

Steve was kneeling on the dirty floor, fixing some loose screws on the front tire of the bike. He had pulled his hair up in a loose ponytail, cigarette dangling lazily from his lips and arms smeared with motor oil.

“I don’t know man. Which one do you like best?” he wiped some of the sweat from his forehead before meeting Jensen’s gaze over the bike’s handlebar.

Jensen bit his lower lip, running his eyes over the tattoos peeking out from beneath the fabric of Steve’s shirt. Different colors were forming elaborate patterns up and down his arms. The shirt he was wearing hid most of the colorful body art from Jensen’s gaze, but from what Jensen could tell the bodies were most likely covering his shoulders and chest.

There were so many details, so many different intertwined motifs that Jensen had a hard time telling where one tattoo stopped and where another one began.

“Here, let me help,” Steve chuckled, noticing his dilemma. He straightened up from the ground and pulled his shirt off in one fluid move, revealing the heavily tattooed body beneath.

Jensen couldn’t help but gape. To the outside world Steve Carlson would look like the type of guy to have his entire upper body marked by ink, but at closer inspection, Jensen couldn’t help but feel like he was looking at a freaking masterpiece.

He had two full sleeves and a huge centerpiece across his sternum, showing a running tiger with flames coming from its tail and paws. Around the lion was a valley with several mountain peaks and a small river running beside it. There was a compass on Steve’s breastbone and something that looked like a wilted rose on his collar bone. A cross with initials inside was marking up the skin right below his throat and this one especially showed amazing depth in black and shades of gray.

“Steve, this is…”

“Pretty spectacular, huh?” the older man laughed, flexing his muscles proudly as he turned around to show even more of the ink covering his body.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jensen agreed softly, itching to reach out and trace the rich color with his fingers. “Are they all from the same artist?”

“Most of them are, yeah,” Steve said. “I got this one a couple of months ago.” He pointed at the tattoo on his shoulder blade. It was a black crow escaping from a bird cage. Right next to it were the first few lines taken from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s song ‘Free Bird’.

“Guy’s studio is just across the street. He’s the most talented motherfucker in business right now. I was actually planning to go there tomorrow. You’re more than welcome to tag along if you want.”

“Seriously?” Jensen grinned, excitement thrumming through his bones. He had never seen a tattoo parlor from the inside. Never stepped through the doorway of a studio to soak in the smell of leather and antiseptics or listen to the telltale hum of the tattoo gun.

“Yeah, I’m getting another one done on my calf. How about you take the new one for your project? It’ll give you enough time to finish your sketches.”

“I’d love to.”

Steve grinned. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll get tempted yourself, walk out with a little memento for eternity.”

Jensen laughed at that. “I don’t think so. I mean it’s cool. They’re really cool. You can tell a lot about a person by their tattoos, you know? It’s almost like they portray a piece of their soul on the outside. It’s like a permanent reminder of what happened in a person’s life, of what they experienced or what they like,” he cleared his throat, suddenly noticing that he was rambling. “Sorry, I just… it’s really interesting to me. There are so many psychological aspects to body modifications.“

“You think you can tell stuff about my character from my tats?” Steve questioned with a skeptical expression on his face. “You gonna psycho-analyze me or something?”

“Well if you’d trust the opinion of psychologists, tattoos are a form of self-mutilation, but I think it’s more about the underlying idea to differentiate yourself from a broad mass. It’s about individualism and the autonomy. By changing your body permanently, you portray a sense of strong will and uniqueness,” Jensen trailed off and then pointed at Steve’s chest. “Take your lion tat, for example. Lions usually stand for exerting some kind of control over subconscious thoughts or longings. They also stand for balance and self-control in that we don't overdo certain areas of our lives. If I had to guess, I’d say you’ve had to deal with some lack of control in your life. Maybe you’ve battled a childhood trauma or an addiction.”

Jensen’s eyes wandered up to the cross with the initials beneath Steve’s throat. “That one is pretty self-explanatory. My best guess would be that you’ve lost someone close to you. You’ve placed the cross right above the lion’s head so I’m thinking maybe they died due to whatever you’ve been battling yourself. Probably alcohol or drugs,” Jensen elaborated without looking up at Steve. “As for the crow breaking out of its cage. Well, other than your obvious love for music, everything about this tattoo practically screams ‘freedom’.  If my assumptions are correct, the cage represents addiction, and the bird shows your inner strength for having conquered it.”

Steve was unnaturally quiet in the aftermath of Jensen’s analysis.

He put his shirt back on and then went back to work on the front tire of the bike without a second glance in Jensen’s direction.

For a moment, Jensen wanted to apologize, thinking he had overstepped his boundaries, but then Steve started talking.

“I was sixteen when somebody offered me my first pill at a gig in L.A," Steve explained with a wayward expression in his eyes. He wiped at the sweat and grease on his forehead with the back of his hand and shook his head wistfully. "The way it made me feel- the way it made me forget about how hard life, just made me crave more. I knew then and there that it wouldn’t be my last. Nine months later I got expelled from school for illegal possession and distribution of drugs on school property. I was sentenced to one year of probation. My mom couldn’t even look me in the eyes in that damn courtroom. I should have known back then- should have gotten my act together when I still had the chance.”

Jensen was quiet as he let the words sink in.

He had gotten to know Steve as a laid back guy with smarts, humor, and talent. It was hard to imagine him selling drugs to a bunch of school kids.

“It was a downward spiral from there. I got hooked on the bad stuff. Crack, meth, heroin… Guess it didn’t really hit me until my best friend was found dead in his apartment. Stupid bastard died of an overdose.”

Jensen looked down at his lap, mouth dry as he swallowed.

Inadvertently, he felt like he had just opened up a can of worms.

Like he had brought back memories that weren’t meant for anyone but Steve himself.

“I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to feel sorry for," Steve shrugged it off.

“I really didn’t mean to prod,“ Jensen said but Steve shook his head.

“It’s a part of my life I’m not particularly proud of, but it’s still a part of me. I’ve been sober for going on 7 years. I still have days where I consider popping a pill just to take the edge off. But then I look at Jay or Katie and I realize that I’m no longer just living for me. I’m living for this gang, they need me just as much as I need them. They’re what keeps me strong when life gets too hard. My old coping mechanism was drugs, but now it’s family.”

Jensen swallowed around the sudden tightness in his throat. He was suddenly reminded of an old quote he had read somewhere a few years ago.

“Never be ashamed of your scars. They are there to show that you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.”

Steve stopped in his movements, freezing in place and for a second Jensen thought he might have seen a flicker of emotion in the older man’s eyes.

“I think I get it now," he said slowly looking up at Jensen as if he'd realized something important.

“Get what?”

“Why he likes you... why you're the one.”

 

 

“So what does he look like beneath all these layers?” Katie asked as she wrestled a stack of shirts into the shelves with the merchandise.

Jensen watched her struggle with the display for a second before he took half the stack of shirts from her arms and helped her stock up the supply.

“Is he proportional? Judging from the way you wince with every move I’d say yes.“

“God, Katie, would you please shut up?” Jensen groaned. 

“Not until you hit me with details,” she refolded one of the shirts that had fallen to the ground in a crumbled heap. They came in different colors and sizes and were all labeled with the brand name of the store.

“You remind me of one of my friends,” Jensen shook his head softly, remembering the way Danneel had pestered him with questions about Jared not too long ago. There was no doubt in his mind that the two girls would hit it off immediately, based on the fact that they were unhealthily attached to the thought of Jensen and Jared together. "She's just as nosy as you."

“Sounds like the gal has good taste,” Katie winked at him. “Why don’t you bring her over some time and we can gush about how hot you and Jay are together.”

“Yeah, sounds like something she’d be on board with.”

“So, is he? Proportionate?”

Jensen groaned and sank down into one of the nearby leather chairs. “Okay, how about you show me which tattoo you want me to do for the lightning and I’ll offer to answer one question for every fact you reveal about your tats?”

She smirked. “You got yourself a deal there, handsome.”

They went a few rounds back and forth like that. Katie wasn’t exactly bashful about the things she wanted to know and it only took Jensen a few minutes before he had found out that Katie used to be an exotic dancer in some strip club until she ran into the gang at a biker convention. She was two months late on her rent and about to get kicked out of her apartment when the gang offered her a job as a sales assistant in the shop.

“They were all just the best kind of guys, you know? Really helpful and genuine. I feel like they were a little protective of me, even back then. Chris found out I was working in a shady place, there were some rumors about the owner of the club and about how he forced some of the girls to offer services of a different kind to his customers. I never actually found out if they were true or not.”

“I’m glad you didn’t have to,” Jensen murmured, not even wanting to imagine what could have happened to Katie if she hadn’t run into the gang.

“This one is my favorite,” Katie pulled up her tank top and pointed at the tattooed flower pattern ranking along the back of her shoulder blade and down along the side of her trim waist. The flowers were all of a different kind and blossoming in rich colors.

“I want you to do that one,” she grinned. “There’s no big and meaningful story or whatever. It’s just, I just really like that one.”

“Sure. I can do that.”

The flowers would be an easy enough sketch and they would make for an excellent motif for the fender.

Besides, the tattoo really suited her character. There probably was no better way of capturing some of Katie’s personality than with a bunch of wild, colorful flowers.

“Now, I think you owe me some details, Mister,” Katie deadpanned with a wiggle of her eyebrows and just in that moment, the door to the store was ripped open, revealing Chase and a battered-looking Chad, hobbling in on crutches. "Guess who's home, bitches?"

“Chad!” Katie’s whole face lit up with joy and Jensen felt like he owed Chad a present or something for having perfect timing.

 

 

The first thing Jared noticed when he arrived at the house, was that Jeff’s Harley was not in its usual spot in the parking lot.

He wrestled the keys out of his pocket and pressed speed dial on his phone, already fearing the worst when he noticed that all the lights inside the house had been shut off and the front door was locked.

“Goddamnit, Jeff,“ Jared cursed under his breath when he reached voicemail. He didn’t even bother to close the door behind him as he stormed inside, yelling Jeff’s name as he searched every room for a sign of the older man. It was in vain.

The house was empty.

Hurrying back towards the door, mind racing with a thousand possibilities of where Jeff might have gone off to and what he might be doing, Jared froze in the living room when something caught his attention.

A dark folder was lying opened on the couch table; a few pages sticking out of the stack of documents.

At closer inspection, Jared frowned, eyes narrowing. 

He had never seen the documents before. Some of the numbers were highlighted in bright yellow. Jared picked some of the sheets up and paged through them.

Profit and loss statements. Balance sheets. The print on the pages looked faded and the paper had taken on a yellowish hue over the years, but there was no doubt about what Jared was holding in his hands.

It was a set of financial statements dating back to the year they had bought the shop. The documents were a decade old.

Why had Jeff dragged them back out of the dusty corners of the storage room?

Jared grabbed the folder and stuffed the sheets back inside before he took off towards the front door.

 

 

“Why did you sign yourself out, you reckless idiot? You’re barely able to stand on your feet!” Chris was fretting over Chad as he guided the injured man over to the ratty couch that stood discarded in the far corner of the garage.

They went slowly and had to pause a couple of times on the way. By the time they had reached the sofa, Chad was sweating profusely and looked close to tears.

He let out a soft groan when Chris lowered him to the cushions, biting his lower lip in an effort to hold back his pain.

“Careful,” Jensen reached out to steady the man when he swayed. “You’re running a fever. Did you even wait for them to give you your meds before you bailed?”

“Jay told me you’ve got unlimited access,” Chad grunted and Jensen frowned, feeling a sliver of irritation.

“Yeah, well, Jared’s an idiot and what you’ve done is highly irresponsible. If the fracture on your leg is still infected you could develop a severe case of osteomyelitis.”

“Ostro-what?” Chad frowned up at Jensen, looking genuinely confused. “Look, Nurse Ratched, can you stow the med talk for later and let me catch my breath first? I’ve had a really shitty day, alright?”

Jensen wanted to argue. Bone infections weren’t something to take lightly.

Most of the time antibiotics were administered intravenously for weeks until the invading bacteria left the infected organism and there was no way any doctor in his right mind would have signed Chad out of the hospital before the infection was completely gone.

But it wasn’t his decision to make. So he kept his mouth shut.

Thankfully, Katie was there to fill the awkward silence with chatter. “Shitty day? What’s the long face all about? You’re finally back home, right? If that’s not a reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is.”

Chad looked away, swallowing and it wasn’t until then that Jensen noticed the dark circles beneath his red-rimmed eyes. The sunken-in cheeks and the ghostly pallor of his skin. He looked absolutely miserable.

Jensen swallowed, remembering that Sandy hadn’t looked all too different when she had knocked on his door at the dorms the other night.

Kind of scary what a broken heart could do to people.

“You mean besides the fact that somebody was trying to kill me and almost succeeded?” Chad snorted.

“How’s that anything new?” Chris ruffled Chad’s spikes with a fond smirk on his face. “I mean you’ve only been back for ten minutes and I’m already sick of your face.”

“Go fuck yourself, man,” Chad gave him the finger. But a small smile crept over his features.

“Are you in pain or something?” Genevieve handed Chad a bottle of water and Jensen really wondered how she could look so concerned about someone when she was being a stone-cold bitch every goddamn time she was talking to him. “Want me to drive you home so you can get some rest?”

“Nah, I just need some distraction, it will do me good to be around you fuckers. Doctors said it could help with the memory loss.”

“Sometimes being in familiar surroundings can provide the right stimuli to overcome amnesia,” Jensen’s swallowed when he noticed the looks the rest of the gang was shooting him. He cleared his throat. “I mean, at least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Is there an off-button to this guy?” Chad jabbed a finger at Jensen, some of the worry-lines easing from his face.

“He was actually just working over some of the sketches for the project,” Katie supplied excitedly and bounced back on her heels.  “Maybe you guys wanna look them through together?”

“Yeah, sure. Show me what you got, man,” Chad leaned back against the cushions. "Let’s see if you’re really as special as Jay makes you out to be.”

Twenty minutes later and Jensen was deeply engulfed in a surprisingly pleasant conversation about drawing techniques and shadings with a guy that was, even more surprisingly, really talented and fun to hang out with.

The gang had left them alone for a while, giving them some time to get to know each other better and Jensen found himself enjoying the company. It was easy to see that Chad didn’t only have a passion for bikes, but also for all things related to creativity and arts. His eyes lit up whenever he started talking about his design work and it was easy to tell that he had had years’ worth of expertise and knowledge. 

“So you’d have used a hatching technique for this one as well?”

Chad nodded as he worked the draft of Katie’s flower pattern over with a pencil. “If you space the parallel lines closely together like this, it will create a better tonal effect. See?”

“I was planning to put that one on the fender. What do you say?” Jensen glanced over at Chad only to notice that the other man was no longer listening, his eyes having taken on a wayward shimmer as he dropped the sketch of Katie’s tattoo and reached for another drawing that was peeking out of Jensen’s artist’s map. It was one of his training pages, just a collection of random doodles and half-finished contours, but Chad seemed oddly intrigued by it.

“The one on the bottom left… whose tattoo is that?” Chad asked in a faraway voice, thumb tracing over the barely recognizable draft of a crane. And Jensen’s mouth dried almost instantly when he realized what Chad was looking at. He had only seen parts of the tattoo on different occasions and retraced it by memory, hell, he’d even made up parts of it, because he had never been able to take a close look.

But the tattoo undeniably belonged to Sandy.

And Chad had recognized it.

“It’s nothing. I just saw a tattoo on a woman the other day.”

Chad’s eyes narrowed. “What did she look like? Did you meet her at the hospital?”

_Damn._

Jensen shot a helpless glance over at Chris who was working on a tire nearby and overheard their conversation.

It wasn’t like he wanted to keep this shit secret.

Chad deserved to know what happened at the hospital, he deserved to know that Sandy was one of the first people at Saint Andrews after Chad was brought in. He deserved to know that she was pregnant with his child.

But she had explicitly asked him not to say anything.

And the gang wasn’t exactly a fan of Sandy after the number she’d pulled on Chad. It wasn’t like they were going to show any support towards her, which was why Jensen hadn’t brought up the whole topic in the first place. Sandy had been fragile when Jensen had last seen her. And the least thing she, or the baby, needed right now was more stress to be added to the drama of the past few weeks.

“You guys alright over here?” Chris asked with a slight frown on his face when he noticed the tension in the air between them. “You don’t like the design or something?”

“What I don’t like is that there’s a sketch of my ex-girlfriend’s tattoo in Jensen’s collection. You care to fucking explain that one to me?”

Chris didn’t even waver for a second, his expression not giving him away and subconsciously Jensen wasn’t sure if he should envy Chris’ composure or be wary of the fact that he was such a pro at lying.

“Look, man, don’t start this shit up again, alright? She’s gone, banging some dude in New York… no sense dwelling on it. There’s probably a whole fucking bunch of girls with a tattoo like this on the planet.”

Jensen flinched a little at the harshness of what Chris had said, but Chad was either used to it, or he simply didn’t care about Chris’ choice of words. “I swear to fucking god, Chris. You need to fucking tell me if she was there or not.”

“She wasn’t,” Chris gave back in a clipped voice, leaving no room for discussion. “No quit obsessing over your ex and get some rest, man. You look like you need it.”

Chad’s face was drained of whatever little color he had gained in the course of the past hour and Jensen suddenly felt terribly guilty for keeping his mouth shut. 

Chad cleared his throat, eyes shiny and distant as he stared at a spot across the room. “Sorry, I snapped at you, man. I think the pills might be getting to my head or something.”

“Yeah, that might be it,” Jensen pressed before gathering up all of his sketches and getting up from the sofa. “I shouldn’t have kept you so long. I get carried away when it comes to drawing.”

“That’s okay,” Chad yawned and then gave Jensen a genuine smile.

“You’re really talented. You’ll do the Lightning justice.”

 

 

It wasn’t until much later that afternoon that Jensen ran into Chase.

“Is there something I can do for you?”

“Yeah, actually,” Chase smiled a little, scratching his neck like this was just a nice chat between friends like he couldn’t feel the tension in the air between them.

But Jensen saw right through the act. Chase was standing too close to him, crowding into his personal space and there was a spark of cold fury in his eyes.

The doorway to the garage was now blocked by Chase’s sports bike and there was no doubt in Jensen’s mind that the bastard had left it there on purpose to barricade the exit.

“What’s with the ambush?” Jensen sighed, deciding that this talk was long overdue.

The guy had been shooting him dirty looks and snide comments for the better part of five weeks now and Jensen’s had enough.

“You know, at first, I thought your little teenage-girl-crush on Jared was kinda cute,“ Chase smirked in that smug little way that made Jensen’s fingers curl. “Pointless, but cute, what with all that doe-eyed staring and the way you were following him around like a lost little puppy.”

“Is there a punchline to this whole thing or are you just out for a fight?” Jensen’s eyes narrowed.

Chase shrugged. “I think it’s time for you to give it a rest, you know? Whatever fairytale romance you’re hoping for obviously isn’t going to happen, so how about you stop making a fool of yourself?”

“Right,” Jensen’s jaw clenched, the words getting under his skin faster than he was willing to admit. " _I'm_ the one making a fool out of myself."

“How exactly do you think this is gonna play out for you, Jensen? You think he’s gonna play happy family with you? Get 2.5 kids with his fancy doctor husband and make slow, gentle love to you at night?”

The words were spat out with so much derision- practically dripping with sarcasm, like the mere idea of Jared having a family of his own, least of all with someone like Jensen, was ridiculous.

“I don’t expect anything from him,” Jensen tried to shove past Chase but the other man held on to his arm.

“Yeah right,“ Chase hissed, grabbing Jensen by the shirt and yanking him so close their noses were almost touching. “You’re acting like you’re a part of the gang, prancing around, asking questions like you’re Jared’s trophy husband or some shit. You seriously think you’re something special, just because he fucked you?”

Chase shoved Jensen back, sending him stumbling. “Well, I got newsflash for you, college boy. Every time your prude ass got Jay all hot and bothered only to leave him behind with blue balls- guess who was there to take the take the edge off, huh?”

Taken aback, Jensen could only blink and try to process Chase’s words when the other man pulled his cell phone from his jeans pocket and pressed the play button of what looked like some kind of recording.

There was an audible rustle of clothes and what sounded like heavy breathing and everything inside of Jensen clenched with dread at the realization of what he was listening to.

' _Fuck me,’_ a voice on the recording rasped and there was no denying that it was Chase. _‘You wanna get fucked?’_ a second voice growled out and Jensen thought he was going to throw up.

Jared. The recording was of the two of them together. _‘_ _Wanna take my dick, Chase? Feel me for days? That what you fucking want?’_

There was a rattle of furniture, the soft clank of a chair falling over and a broken-off moan.  _‘Y-yeah… fuck yes, c’mon, Jay. Fucking do it!’_

The recording broke off and Chase smiled at the mixture of shock and hurt that flickered over Jensen’s expression. “Sound familiar?”

God, he’d been so goddamn naïve.

He had actually thought whatever was between them was different, that Jared wasn’t just trying to get into his pants.

“Aww, sweetheart,” Chase put on his best impression of empathy and reached out to clasp the back of his neck. “It’s nothing personal, you know? He was really worried about you last night. Probably just wanted to take your mind off what happened, show you a good time and all.”

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Jensen shrugged the other man’s hand off and grabbed his navy jacket from the floor.

“Where are you going?” Chase called after him, the smile never quite vanishing from his lips. “Don’t you wanna ask me about my tattoos?”

Jensen was out of the door before Chase could get in another word, blinking tears from his vision as he took a frantic glance around. His heart was racing, his mind spinning with thoughts of last night and Jared, fucking Chase while he had led Jensen on with kisses and gentle touches and whispered promises.

Jared was still gone and so was his bike.

Jensen didn’t even have a car here and the public transport in this part of town was shady, not to speak of the fact that he was a potential ‘target’ for the Reapers and Jared had ordered him to stay put like a fucking dog.

Fishing a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pockets with shaking fingers, Jensen gave a start when heavy hands landed on his shoulders. “Where's the fire, Jenny?“

Reacting on pure instinct, a flood of panic and memories of that goddamn pub’s bathroom overwhelming him, Jensen lashed out, slamming his elbow back in a blind attack and hitting something solid in the process.

“ _Shit_ ,” Chris grunted, stumbling back, hands shooting up to clutch at his bleeding lips from where Jensen's elbow had caught him. “What the fuck has gotten into you, man?”

“Chris?” Jensen rasped out, eyes widening. His heart was still racing. Fingers shaking so hard he could barely control them. “Fuck. I-I’m sorry. You surprised me and I didn’t—“

“What's going on here?” Jensen’s head snapped up at the familiar voice and his heart froze for a second when he saw Jared standing in the parkway. His hair was tousled from the wind, cheeks flushed from the biting cold and Jensen wasn’t sure whether he wanted to kiss Jared in relief or punch him in the face.

Jared examined Chris’ face and the cut on his lip with a small frown before shooting a questioning look over at Jensen. “You having a fight or something?”

“He caught me off guard,” Jensen explained in a small voice, not really meeting Jared’s gaze.

“You okay?” Jared asked and Jensen could feel the older man’s gaze on his skin like the hot shine of a spotlight.

“Y-yeah, no… I just,” Jensen bit his lower lip, trying hard to suppress the battling emotions in his chest. “Can you take me back to Harvard? I wanna go home.”

Jared’s frown deepened, but he just nodded in consent. “Sure.”

 

 

Jensen was acting weird.

He had been rigid against Jared’s back the entire ride back to Harvard and there was a strange emotion warring on his face whenever Jared looked at him.

The second they got off the bike in the university parking lot, Jensen slid off the back seat and grabbed his bag, looking pale and distraught in a way that had Jared worried. “You gonna tell me what’s going on with you?”

Even just by looking at him, Jared could tell that Jensen was in full deflection mode. “I don’t know what you’re—“

“Cut the shit, Jensen. You’ve been acting skittish around me ever since I came back. What’s this about?”

Jensen gnawed on his bottom lip and took a fleeting glance around like he was uncomfortable talking to Jared out here in a public area where people could watch them.

Jared sighed. Apart from waking up with Jensen, he had had a pretty crappy day as far as bad days went. Jeff had called him not too long ago, claiming to have gone out for a drink to clear his mind from what happened, but Jared was pretty sure the old man had been lying.

There was something off about this whole situation, from the set-up in the bar the previous night to the fucking papers Jared had found in Jeff’s living room.

And Jared was intent on getting to the bottom of it. But first things first.

“You wanna take this upstairs?”

Jensen seemed to contemplate it for a second. “Okay.”

The dorm was empty when they arrived and Jensen made a straight line for his room, dumping his duffle in a corner and washing a tired hand over his face.

He deflated a little, looking utterly spent and Jared realized the kid probably hadn’t eaten anything in the past 24 hours, nor had he gotten full night’s worth of sleep.

“What’s going on with you?” Jared stepped closer and reached out to cradle Jensen’s jaw with his palm.

Jensen stepped back, avoiding the touch and that’s when Jared saw the flicker of barely-contained hurt in the younger man’s features.

Yeah, something had definitely happened.

Jensen swallowed, looking anywhere but at Jared. After a few seconds of awkward silence, he finally opened his mouth, a miserable expression on his face. “Did you sleep with Chase?”

"Seriously?" Jared huffed out an incredulous, humorless laugh. “That’s what this is about?”

“Just answer the fucking question, Jared,” Jensen growled, eyes narrowing in anger.

Jared snorted. “Yeah, I did. How does it matter?”

“How does it matter?” Jensen repeated incredulously, voice quickly rising in volume as his emotions overwhelmed him. “Are you for real?”

Jared sighed, looking exasperated. This was exactly why he didn’t usually get involved with anyone. As soon as emotions got involved, things got complicated and trouble started brewing.

“Look, I’m sorry if this comes to a surprise or whatever, but there’s quite the list of people I’ve fucked before I met you, Jensen. That’s just the way it is, so if that bothers you—“

“I don’t care about who you slept with before you met me. I wanna know if it still happened after we’ve started fooling around!”

“Did he tell you that?” Jared growled out, low and dangerous. “That I fucked around with him behind your back or something?”

Jensen just stared off into the distance, jaw locked in a tight line.

Jared curled his fingers into fists by his side, cloying anger surging up in his chest. “Two days ago, Chase walked up to me all hot and bothered, tried to get me to fuck him in my office and I turned him down.”

Jensen let out a small breath, some of the tension melting from his face, but the skepticism was still there, the goddamn sense of insecurity was still there and all of Jensen’s defensive walls were back in place.

“But even if I did, it would have been fucking meaningless. It wouldn’t have changed a goddamn thing between us.”

“Are you kidding me?” Jensen blurted out, looking genuinely hurt. “It would have changed _everything_ between us! How can you not see that?”

“Well it didn’t fucking happen, so why don’t you stop acting like we’re a fucking married couple,” Jared snapped, backing Jensen up against the wall.

His chest was heaving and his pupils were blown wide with anger, their breath mingling in the heat of their fight.

“Oh yeah?” Jensen tore himself away and shoved Jared back by the shoulders, sending him stumbling. “So you’re telling me if I walked out the door to get fucked by some random guy, you wouldn’t mind?”

Jared clenched his teeth, knowing what Jensen was doing and yet unable to hide the growing rage in his chest at the thought of Jensen with anybody else.

“You’re saying if I called Matt right this second and decided to give him a long, hard rid- _mmph_ —“ Jensen didn't get to finish his sentence when Jared crashed their mouths together, teeth clanking and breaths mingling as Jared’s strong fingers tightly gripped his cheeks tight enough to leave bruises.

Jensen muffled a whimper against his lips, his hands coming around Jared in unnecessary encouragement. Jensen moaned, all the anger and his protective walls crumbling to dust in the span of a second, all composure lost in the heat of the moment.

Jared didn’t even have to think about it before he was moving, shoving Jensen down against the covers and climbing down on top of him, hands gripping Jensen’s arms just too tight, one of his palms reaching down to brush over the bulging erection beneath his jeans.

“That what you want, huh? For Matt to fuck you?” Jared tightened his fingers around Jensen’s dick, thumb tracing the tip of his swollen head through the restricting layer of fabric on him. Jensen hissed in pleasure, eyelids fluttering and muscles locking up at the teasing touch. Jared leaned down for another open-mouthed kiss, digging his fingers into Jensen’s jaw as he swiped his tongue over the younger man’s teeth and nipped at his lips, holding and turning his head in full control of Jensen’s movements.

“You want him to be here instead of me?” Jared growled out low under his breath before he ground his crotch down hard against Jensen’s hip, licking and biting relentlessly at the younger man’s mouth. Jensen writhed against him in frustration, breathing ragged as he bucked up against Jared’s body.

“Shit Jared... need you, _please_.“

“You sure you don’t need someone else? Sure you don’t want to call Matt down and have some fun?” Jared mouthed at Jensen’s jaw, nipped at his ear- deliberately teasing Jensen with his earlier words.

He looked down into the younger man’s lust-blown pupils, down to the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in a slow catch and drag as he swallowed. “N-no, goddamnit, _screw you_ , Jared.“

Jared laughed, low and raspy. He held Jensen down against the mattress with a firm palm to his sternum and pushed a thigh between his legs, encouraging him to ride it.

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m the only cowboy you’re gonna take a long, hard _ride_ with, you understand? Not some random fucker from the street, not your next door neighbor and least of all that fucking asshole, Matt? Do I make myself clear?”

“God, fuck yeah, only you,“ Jensen panted out, frantically clawing at Jared’s leather jacket. “Just you. ”

Jared yanked Jensen’s jeans open and then they fumbled to wrestle layers off restricting fabric off each other. “Show me how much you want it.”

Jensen grabbed two handfuls of Jared’s shirt and practically ripped it off the older man’s chest, panting against his bare neck when he was done. He fought his way out of his clothes, pants hanging halfway down his ass and making short work of Jared’s boxers. Grasping the back of Jensen’s head, Jared yanked him in for another messy kiss that did nothing to slow the raging fire of lust and heat inside his chest.

Fuck but that kid was driving him crazy.

His heart was racing, his mind was dazed with lust and the whole room was spinning around him.

Never before in his entire life, had Jared gone from genuinely pissed off to hard enough to cut glass with his fucking dick in two minutes flat.

“Fuck, fuck,” Jensen hissed suddenly, breaking the kiss and looking distraught as he disentangled himself from Jared.

“What is it?” Jared asked, fingers still digging into the firm globes of Jensen’s ass, breath still coming in ragged little breaths of hot air. “You okay?”

“I don’t have any lube,” Jensen cursed in a low tone and then looked away, cheeks colored in the familiar flush of embarrassment like it was something to be fucking ashamed of.

Jared chuckled, trying to mask his own disappointment for Jensen’s sake. "You got a condom, at least?"

"Yeah," Jensen nodded and then straddled Jared, expression determined as he grabbed Jared’s hand and worked two of his fingers into his mouth, sucking them in and swirling his tongue around them. 

The sensation of Jensen’s velvety tongue sliding over his fingers, sucking on them, coupled with the visuals of Jensen on top of him, cheeks hollowed out and eyes at half-mast as he moaned around his fingers was sending shockwaves of pleasure right to his pulsing dick.

“Christ, stop it, what are you—“

“What does it look like?” Jensen released Jared’s fingers with a slick sound and then guided Jared’s hand back to his hole. “Do it, Jay, c’mon.”

“Jensen—“

“I can take it.”

And that was it. The words send Jared’s blood rushing downwards in an anticipation of pleasure and with a low growl and a stinging bite to Jensen’s jawline, Jared started to work the younger man open. It didn’t take long before Jensen spread his thighs apart as far as his jeans, trapped legs allowed and reached for Jared’s cock while ripping the condom wrapper open with his teeth.

It hurt and they had to take it slower than either of them wanted to. But it was still the most amazing feeling in the world, the way Jensen’s muscles fluttered and clenched around him, so fucking tight and hot and perfect that it had black spots dancing at the edge of Jared’s vision.

Jensen wiggled his hips, just the barest of movements and Jared grunted half in pleasure half in surprise at the delicious friction it brought. “Fuck, _yes_.”

He settled his palms on either side of Jensen’s hips and waited for the other man to meet his gaze before he started moving, meeting each and every one of Jensen’s movements with hard thrusts o his own.

Jensen’s eyes were half-dazed, glazed over with pleasure as he rode Jared. His mouth was slightly parted as he gasped with each thrust, his skin glistening from exertion, lips bit raw from where his teeth were digging into them.

Later, with Jensen lying half-sprawled on top of him, their naked bodies tangled with the sheets, their clothes and each other, Jared let out a slow breath. “Sex was always just that to me- just...  _sex_. But the thought of you with someone else…”

Jensen shifted against Jared, his eyelashes fluttering against Jared’s pulse point as reverently traced the spread wings of Jared’s phoenix tattoo with his fingertips.

He said nothing, just looked up at Jared, his heart thrumming in tune with Jared’s.

Jared swallowed. “I've never really done the whole 'being exclusive' thing.”

And somehow it felt weird to admit that. To change that for someone he had only known for a little over a month.

But Jensen was constantly on his mind, even amidst all the other shit that was going down around them. And Jared hadn’t even so much as spared someone a second glance since the day he had met Jensen.

“We’ll figure it out,” Jensen pressed a kiss right over Jared’s heart, where the tail end of the phoenix feathers leads onto an hourglass tattoo.

Jared tangled his fingers in Jensen’s spikes and tilted his head to the side for a ravishing kiss.

"There'll be nobody else," Jared said in a possessive whisper when they broke apart. “You’re mine.”

 

 

Jeff was waiting at the end of the old Northern Avenue Bridge and bouncing nervously on his heels to keep himself warm in the freezing evening breeze. His gun was a heavy presence from where it was strapped to his chest, the cold steel a comforting weight against his warm flesh as he tried to calm his frantic heartbeat.

Every time a car turned up somewhere close by, Jeff winced a little, hands hovering over his magnum and eyes wide in fearful anticipation. It wasn’t until the familiar rumble of a Triumph 76 neared him that he finally allowed himself to breathe a little easier.

“About damn time,” he growled out grumpily when Ty strolled down the bridge to the meeting point. He was wearing his usual dark blue coat and that battered-looking navy cap, hands buried in his pockets and cigarette dangling from the corner of his chapped lips.  “The fuck took you so long?”

Jeff had never been a patient man.

But Ty only shrugged in response. “Had to make up a story, didn’t I? The gang thinks I’m getting my ankle fixed at the hospital.”

“They’re not suspicious?”

“They don’t know anything.”

Jeff nodded, a flicker of guilt crossing his features. “Good… there’s a lot we need to talk about.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider my kinky side unleashed, guys :P Hope you enjoyed this one- it turned out a little different than originally planned. Please drop me a review if you liked it!! Huge thank you goes out to my beta TheBoys!!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for explicit sexual content. NSFW. Acts of violence. Weapons.

** **

** **

 

**Open Road  
Chapter 15**

Sometime during the night Jensen woke up, disoriented.

It took him a few seconds to come back to his senses and even then, with Jared breathing slow and even on the bed next to him, Jensen thought he might still be caught in a dream.

He sank back against the pillows, watching Jared’s face, smoothed out in blissful serenity and dipped in pale morning light.

Jared shifted in his sleep, the silk sheets slipping down low under his hips and Jensen’s gaze followed the movement, arousal burning hot under his skin.

It was crazy how riled up Jared got him.

Pretty much everything about the other man drove him crazy, from the way his unruly strands fell into his eyes, to the way his dimples showed when he smiled, to the black ink splayed across Jared’s collarbone and toned chest.

He hadn’t been this attracted to anyone in as long he could remember.

And the sex… the sex was fucking fantastic.

Sure, the voice of conscience in the back of Jensen’s mind still sometimes told him it wasn’t going to work. That Jared was beating people bloody on a regular basis, that he was carrying a gun at all times and that he was willing to use it.

But Jensen’s fears were no longer enough to put him off and every goddamn time they were together, Jensen was falling a little harder for the man who had turned his life upside down.

It was like a train wreck he couldn’t look away from.

Jared was lying next to him, pliant with sleep and loose with exhaustion.

Jensen moved down the mattress, careful so as not to rouse the sleeping man, and pulled the silk sheets down, little by little until the dark fabric was pooling around Jared’s thighs.

He swallowed thickly when his gaze flickered over the sharp cut of Jared’s hip bones to his groin and the impressive size of Jared’s heavily veined cock.

Jensen licked his lip in anticipation. He had sucked Jared off before, but never like this.

This wasn’t born out of the heat of the moment. This time, Jensen knew exactly what he was doing, was almost painfully aware of his own actions, of the way his heart was hammering away in his chest.

Jensen didn’t exactly have a great start when it came to going down on somebody.

His first boyfriend, Derek, had been mostly concerned about his own pleasure with very little care to how Jensen felt.

Sucking Derek off had usually left him creaming his pants in the bathroom stall of a shady bar, the bitter taste of come and shame burning low in his gut as he tried to catch his breath.

But Jared was different. 

He was built like a ton of bricks and yet he had never used his physical advantage against Jensen or rushed him into anything he wasn’t ready for. Come to think of it, Jared had actually shown a lot more restraint about them sleeping with one another than Jensen had.

Jared had never given Jensen the feeling that what they did was something to be ashamed of.

He had been surprisingly gentle and understanding, even when Jensen had told him about being a carrier, revealing a side of his character that only few people ever got to see.

Jensen let his gaze trail over the heavy girth of Jared’s cock, feeling his stomach coil tight with anticipation, mind rapidly filling with the memories of Jared’s hard body against his own and their smooth skin gliding together as they moved in perfect sync.

His breathing grew heavy and Jensen could feel his pupils widen with lust, fingers tingling with the urge to touch. Taking a shaky inhale, Jensen let his fingers trail up over the muscular expanse of Jared’s tan thighs.

He swallowed when his fingertips brushed up against coarse hair, lowering his head until his face was hovering mere inches over Jared’s groin.

He circled the base of the shaft with shaking fingers and wet his lips in anticipation before flicking his tongue across the exposed slit. 

Jared’s reaction was instantaneous. Still groggy from sleep, he let out a soft groan and bucked up into the wet suction Jensen’s mouth created.

Jensen ran his tongue over the heavily veined underside of Jared’s shaft and watched through hooded lids as Jared’s stomach muscles contracted and his eyelashes fluttered.

“ _Shit_ ,” Jared hissed in a raspy voice, a heavy hand coming down to grip Jensen’s jaw, fingers tight and encouraging as they guided Jensen forward, forcing him to take him in deeper. “God, yeah.”

His strong fingers were guiding Jensen’s movements, thumbing over the corner of Jensen’s mouth to feel the way his plush lips were stretched wide around his cock.

Jensen bobbed up a few times, eagerly pacing the flicks of his tongue and movement of his mouth with the pace Jared set for him.

Soon they found a rhythm with Jared bucking up from the mattress to meet Jensen on each downward slide.

Jensen’s hands were shaking from where they pressed down against Jared’s thighs, his jaw was aching from the way his mouth was forced wide open and black spots were dancing at the edge of his vision from lack of oxygen.

His own cock was hard and leaking in his boxer briefs, his hips grinding down against the sheets in a desperate attempt to get some kind of friction.

He pulled off with a soft noise, saliva and precome dribbling from the corners of his mouth as he stared up at Jared through a half-lidded gaze.

Jared hooked his fingers under Jensen’s jaw bone and slid his other hand into the silk strands of Jensen’s dirty blond hair. Fisting a handful of the soft curls, Jared pulled Jensen up the mattress in a gesture of dominance. “Get up.”

Jensen went willingly, eyes watering from the sting as he fumbled to keep up with Jared’s movements.

“On your back,” Jared commanded in a gruff voice, flipping Jensen over before he had a chance to respond.

Jensen gasped when Jared climbed up his sweat-covered body and straddled his head with his knees, shocked and aroused at the unexpected roughness.

It took him an embarrassingly long moment to get on with the program, but then his eyes widened in realization and his pulse quickened with excitement.

“Open wide,” Jared reached down to cradle Jensen’s jaw as he guided his cock down past Jensen’s lips. The tip hit the back of Jensen’s throat and Jared still kept going, pushing into him as deeply as possible.

Jared’s thumb slipped down over the shallow dip of his neck, brushing over his pulse point and lingering there- a nearly imperceptible pressure added to the huge piece of flesh and muscle blocking Jensen's airways.

His body was massive on top of Jensen’s, his hair a finger-mussed tousle, muscles shifting beneath the black ink splayed across his abs as he fucked Jensen’s throat, looking down at him with lust burning in his eyes.

Eyes watering, Jensen forced himself to loosen his jaw and to take Jared down as far as possible. He pulled at Jared’s thighs, nails digging into the firm flesh as he let Jared use him, take control.

“You like that? Like being stuffed full of cock?” Jared growled out through gritted teeth. He rocked forward despite the sting of tears in Jensen’s eyes and the way Jensen’s throat muscles constricted around him, squeezing him in all the right ways. “This turning you on?”

Jensen whimpered, half-dazed with pleasure and arousal. He’d never let anyone deepthroat him before and he hadn’t expected to like it, but this was-  _god_ , he felt himself turn bright red at how much he was enjoying this.

Before long, Jared felt come pooling at the base of his cock, the sight of Jensen beneath him, wanton and submissive as he sucked on Jared’s dick, almost too much to bear.

His leg muscles were twitching, his hold on Jensen’s jaw had turned into a bruising grip and with one last grunt, hot ropes of come shot from him and coated the inner walls of Jensen’s throat.

Jensen’s eyes were at half-mast as he swallowed every last bit that Jared pumped into him, some of the jizz dribbling from the corners of his mouth.

Jared pulled out and Jensen reached up to wipe his spit-slick lips with the back of his shaking hand.

For a moment the sound of their labored breathing was the only noise in the room.

Then Jared flopped back against the pillows and let his head roll to the side to look at Jensen.

The brunette’s face was a mess of tears and saliva and puffy red lips.

“Way to start the day, huh?” Jensen asked breathlessly, his voice all fucked-to-hell, eyes crinkling as a lazy smile crept over his features.

Jared gave him a lazy grin. “Not that I’m complaining, but where did that come from?”

“Figured I owed you for… you know,” Jensen toyed with the sheets, a blush creeping over his features and Jared’s heart constricted a little in his chest.

It was a strange feeling, the kind that didn’t really register right away, filling up his entire body with a sort of full, warm thrill that had nothing to do with the post-orgasmic heat pooling in his belly.

It was the kind of feeling that pushed everything else out to make room for itself, all the worries, concerns, fears, every last bit of rationality, expanding and taking up all the space inside of him until he felt like he was bursting with it.

Jared felt his hand come up to rest against Jensen’s cheek, thumb reverently tracing the other man’s bottom lip. “You know this isn’t a competition, right? You don't owe me a goddamn thing, Jensen.”

“I know,” Jensen smiled down at his lap, face illuminated only by the soft sun rays shining in from the window and Jared could feel the sleep-heavy, comfortable atmosphere in the air between them.

When Jensen glanced up again, there was a playful twinkle in his vibrant eyes. “But just in case you wanna know, the score’s 4-5.”

Jared shook his head a little in amusement. “Keeping track of our orgasms? Gotta admit, that’s a little weird, even for you.”

Jensen shrugged. “I keep track of a lot of things. It’s a work-related disease.”

Jared propped himself up on the pillow, leaning forward until his nose was brushing the sensitive skin on Jensen’s ear, hot breath ghosting over the side of the younger man’s neck. “I’ll make you lose count soon enough.”

“That a challenge?” Jensen’s eyes sparked with interest as he flicked his tongue over his bottom lip.

“No,” Jared grinned. “That’s a promise.”

 

 

Thanks to Jared’s astounding stamina, Jensen was running late for his anatomy lecture.

He rushed from the en-suite bathroom in nothing but his bathrobe, blond spikes plastered to his forehead and shower water dripping from his chest as he scrubbed them off with a towel.

Jensen shrugged out of his robe, shivering when the cool morning breeze hit his exposed skin. “Have you seen my glasses anywhere?”

“No, I haven’t,” Jared’s strong arms snaked around his bare torso from behind. “But I can see myself fucking you over the workstation.”

“Jay,” Jensen protested half-heartedly, even as he leaned back into the other man’s chest. “I can’t.”

Jared nuzzled the crook of his neck, taking a deep breath of his citrus shampoo and grazing his lips against the silky skin. “Why not?”

“If I skip out on another lecture, I’ll fail the course.” He tilted his head, allowing the older man more access and then gasped when Jared nipped at his collarbone, gathering some of the shower water up with his tongue.

“Too bad…” Jared breathed against his ear, teeth grazing the sensitive spot at the corner of his jaw. He let his palms slide down over the smooth crease of Jensen’s ass, fingertips catching on the swollen hole, but not quite going in. “I had plans for you.”

“Jay,” Jensen gasped, hips grinding back involuntarily against Jared’s probing fingers. “I gotta get going.”

The older man laughed, damp and hot against the back of his neck and for a moment Jensen thought he could come on the sound, alone.

“Alright, alright,” he turned the other man around in his arms and let his mouth slide over Jensen’s, dragging the other man’s lips open in a slow kiss. 

Jared tasted of coffee and the candy. But beneath all of it, Jensen could taste himself on Jared’s tongue and it wasn’t nearly as repulsive as it was breathtakingly hot.

Eventually, Jared pulled back from Jensen with a slap to the younger man’s ass. “Your glasses are on the night stand. And just so you know, I think you look ridiculously hot in them, so how about you hold off on the nerdy schoolboy look until I’m gone?”

“Mhhm, someone’s got a kink,” Jensen smirked. “I have training right after class, but after that, I can come to the shop or—“

“Or I take you out to the Boston Art Show,” Jared looked down, hair falling into his face as he pulled two crinkled looking tickets from his jeans.

Jensen’s eyes widened. He took the tickets and turned them over in his hands, swallowing thickly when he trailed his fingers over the neat print on them with shock and amazement written all over his features.

“Are you for real?” he asked breathlessly. “How did you get these?”

The tickets for the fine art fair at the Cyclorama Fine Arts Fair were expensive and hard to come by.

Jensen had often wanted to go there but never made it.

“I’ve had them for a while. Saw a billboard the other day and figured it would be the kind of stuff you’d be into.”

“Jared, I don’t even— _oh god_ ,” Jensen’s face flushed and then he surged forward, launching himself at Jared and nearly knocking them both over in the process.

He hooked his knees around Jared's waist, bare chests pressed together as he wrapped his arms around Jared’s neck.

“I take it you like them?” Jared laughed as he hitched Jensen higher in his arms and propped the younger man up against the wall, Jensen’s bare legs still tightly wrapped around his middle.

“Yeah,” Jensen nodded. “Yeah, Jared, I love them. I’ve always wanted to go.”

“Okay, so,” Jared let Jensen slide back down. He sidled his large palm up the back of Jensen’s back, thumb tracing the curve of his spine. “I’m gonna pick you up at seven.”

“Sounds good,” Jensen grinned, bouncing with excitement.

“I should get going,” Jared reluctantly pulled away and slipped on his shirt. “I can’t be held responsible for what’s going to happen if I have to stare at your naked body for one more minute.”

They stopped five more times on their way out of the apartment and three more times down the hallway, mouths crashing into each other hungrily as they toppled into walls and over furniture.

By the time Jensen finally made it to his lecture hall, he was an hour late for his class.

Lips still tingling, he slipped into his usual spot in the first row and pulled out his notes.

 

 

The store was usually busy on Fridays, especially when a biker gang was passing through South Boston and looking for new equipment or a quick change of tires.

Jared was about halfway into the store when a young woman with leather pants and a cleavage that didn’t leave much for imagination, stopped him in his tracks.

“Excuse me?”

She could have gotten any man’s blood boiling with a body like hers, blond hair a tousle from the ride here, lips pouty enough to give Angelina Jolie a run for her money.

Tonight, however, Jared wasn’t in the mood to get his dick marked up by her lipstick.

“Can I help you, sweetheart?” Jared put on his best smile and Texan charm for the woman, telling himself that she was a customer like any other.

“I sure hope so,” she grinned, tossing her wavy blond curls over her shoulder. “I’m looking for a new bike. Thought you could maybe show me around?”

Jared looked at her, top to bottom. She was in full gear, sturdy boots, body armor at knees and elbows and a helmet still clutched under her right arm. She looked like the kind of person who knew what she wanted and was used to getting it. 

“What exactly are we talking here? Chopper, cruiser, sports bike?” he leaned back against the nearby wall and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Any particular brand you’re interested in?”

“Depends. What are you riding?”

Jared snorted at the blatant innuendo.

He thought about Jensen’s sun-kissed skin and the flecks of gold in his brilliant eyes.

“Hottest guy in town.”

Her eyes grew wide and her pouty mouth fell open in shock. “Wha—“

“Catch a hint, barbie doll! You’re barking up the wrong tree,” Katie narrowed at the woman in front of her. “Now go flash your fake tits at someone who’s actually into them and stop wasting our time.”

“I volunteer!” Chris yelled over at them from behind the counter and chuckled when the woman took off in an angry huff.

“Well done, Kitty Kat,” Chad murmured in an amused tone. “I’ve been gone for a month and you’re still driving our customers away. Good to know that some things never change.”

“Shut up,” Katie grouched. “Bitch was trying to mess with my OTP. She’s lucky I let her walk away.”

“Do I even want to know what an OTP is?” Chad grimaced, knowing Katie was into all kinds of kinky shit and not being bashful about it. They’ve had their fair share of laughs over her Google search result history before.

But Jared couldn’t waste his time joking around. “I gotta talk to Chase. Is he here?”

“Out in the backyard.”

Jared headed outside, easily spotting Chase between the cars and bikes in their junkyard.

“Hey,” Chase looked up at him and smiled. “What are you—“

Jared drew his fist back so fast that Chase didn’t see it coming and plowed it into his stomach. It was like hitting a train head on and Chase doubled over, groaning as he gasped for air.

Jared grabbed him by his shirt and tossed him back against the nearby wall. “Thought you were being real smart, huh? Taking a fucking recording and all. You honestly think I wouldn’t find out about it?”

“Jared, listen, I—“

“Shut up,” Jared yanked the younger man down by the shoulders and brought his knee up to his face. There was a dull crack and Chase doubled over in pain, hands shooting up to where blood started trickling from his nostrils.

“Pull shit like this one more time and a broken nose is gonna be the least of your fucking problems. Do I make myself clear?”

He released the younger man and stepped back, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. “Don’t cross me again, Chase. Fair warning.”

 

 

“Yo, Ackles!” Jensen turned around just when a wet towel came flying in the direction of his abdomen, the soaking fabric hitting him square in the chest.

Taken off guard, he stumbled back against the open door of his locker and fumbled to shake off the offending object. “What the—”

“You should have seen your face, man,” Cody, one of his teammates laughed as he yanked his own locker open, standing there naked and still wet from his shower.

“Knock it off, asshole,” Jensen grimaced at the water that soaked into his fresh shirt and jeans.

He had hurried to get back into the wardrobe earlier, hoping the rest of his teammates wouldn’t notice the bruises and bite marks still littering his neck and shoulders.

The last thing he needed was for them to ask stupid questions.

For a day that had started out so well, Jensen’s mood had dropped considerably when he got a freaking panic attack out in the field in front of his whole fucking team.

Lacrosse was a full-impact sport. Getting tackled was as much a part of the game as knocking somebody to the ground and Jensen had gotten enough first-hand experience over the past couple of years to know that.

He had gotten the wind knocked out of him too many times to count, had had concussions and busted noses and bruises that looked bad enough to warrant a doctor’s visit.

Hell, he had even chipped one of his teeth once, after a particularly vicious body check had landed one of his opponent’s sticks to his face.

Jensen had never really given it a second thought.

Not until Jimmy Fucking Fender, one of the midfielders, had tackled him to the ground in an unexpected foul this afternoon during practice and pressed Jensen down against the grass with all of his two-hundred pounds worth of body mass.

It was only for a second or two, just a goddamn moment of unguarded panic and Jensen had been flooded with memories, his whole body shaking as he was back with that fucking bastard at the bar, back to the sensation of getting pinned against cold tiles and utterly helpless to fend off the foreign hands on his body.

The heavy smell of stale beer mixed with cheap aftershave had clogged Jensen’s nose yet again and his world had started spinning, the mouth guard suddenly feeling like it was choking him as he tried to keep his breathing even.

It had all been useless.

The more Jensen had tried to fend off the memories, the more they had come flooding back to him, drowning him with mind-numbing panic.

By the time the referee had pulled Jimmy off of him, asking Jensen if he was hurt, Jensen had found himself unable to answer, his heart had threatened to beat right out of his chest and his lungs felt like they were burning.

Words like ‘trauma’ and ‘PTSD’ were swirling around in his mind, but all Jensen could think about was _‘I’ll make you beg for it… get off on your screams while I fuck you’_ and just like that, he was hyperventilating, his teammates gathered around him and frantically yelling his name.

The cold shower had helped, but Jensen had been on edge the entire time, hands shaking so badly the soap slipped from his fingers.

He had avoided looking into any mirrors, aware of the fading bruises decorating his chest and throat, a stark reminder of what had happened.

“The hell happened out there? You okay?” Cody asked with a little frown on his face as he shimmied his way into his boxers. “I saw you getting knocked down by Fender and the next thing I know you’re pale as a fucking ghost and heaving for air. Did he hurt you? Fucker should get suspended for pulling such a number on you.”

Most of Jensen’s teammates wouldn’t know a panic attack if it bit them in the ass.

Thankfully, Jensen had rushed off the field just in time to hide the worst from them, but the worried glances they shot him when they thought he wasn’t looking, didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“I’m fine,” Jensen brushed Cody’s words off with fake-casualty. “Fender knocked the wind out of me. I just needed a moment to catch my breath, that’s all.”

“You sure? Coach said you might wanna get checked out by a medic. “

“I said I was fucking fine,” Jensen snapped, irritated.

“Woah,” Cody raised his hands in defense. “Calm down, Ackles. I was just trying to help.”

“Right,” Jensen stuffed his gear into his sports duffle and grabbed his helmet from the bench. “Well, I don’t need your help.”

His skin was crawling with the need to get some fresh air, the walls closing in on him. He couldn’t let them see his battered and tainted body, couldn’t let them see how _weak_ he had been, how _helpless_.

How _pathetic_.

“I’m gonna… I need to—“ Jensen needed to get out.

God, he could still feel that bastard against him, could feel the slight scrub of the guy’s stubble against his chin, the tiny cut in his bottom lip barely visible now, but still stinging with the phantom sensation of teeth. 

“I need to go,” Jensen grabbed his duffle with shaking fingers.

His chest was tight with panic, throat closing around the sudden lump blocking his airways.

“Wait up, man,” Cody called after him, but Jensen was already halfway out the door, eyes squeezed shut and chest heaving.

 

 

“Hi, my name is McCoy. I’m here to see one of your patients, Chad Murray.”

The nurse blinked up at her from behind a red-rimmed pair of glasses, hair pulled back into a neat bun. “We don’t have a patient under this name.”

Sandy’s face fell, one of her hands automatically slipping down to the swell of her barely visible baby bump. “What? Can you check that again? I was here about two weeks ago and—“

“Excuse me, Miss,” a deep voice had her whirl around and caused the breath to stutter in her throat.

She let out a tiny sound, caught somewhere between a shocked gasp and choked protest when her gaze fell onto the litter they were carrying, a white tarp covering the body resting above.

Her brain kind of short-circuited when she saw the tufts of blond hair sticking out at one end, the barely distinguishable outline of tattooed skin from beneath the pristinely white sheet.

“No, no, no, no… this can’t be right.”

She reached out with shaking fingers, vision blurred as her hand brushed over the tarp, but the two men carrying the stretcher moved past her before she could do much else.

Pain slammed into her like an eighteen-wheeler, sharp and piercing as it tore through her heart with relentless ferocity.

They had taken Chad off life supply.

He was dead.

He was dead and he was never going to come back. 

_Oh god._

Her breathing was heavy, her mind racing with a million thoughts, mouth dry as her pulse quickened to a near frantic pace.

She was full-out panicking as she stumbled out the hospital and onto the street.

Her vision was blurred as she tripped over the edge of the sidewalk, one hand fanned out protectively over her belly while she was white-knuckling her cell phone with the other. 

“You okay, Miss?” a woman in scrubs had stopped in her tracks, looking at Sandy with worry carved all over her wrinkled features.

She stumbled, caught herself on the hood of a car, eyes wide and cold sweat beading on her forehead.

A trembling hand shot up to her mouth as a bout of sickness suddenly overwhelmed her, black spots dancing at the edge of her vision.

With one violent contraction, Sandy was doubling over, the congealed contents of her cramping stomach emerging in the morning light, nothing digested since the evening before.

She expelled the meager contents of her stomach, heaving for air as dribbles of saliva and bile clung to her chin and dripped to the dirty concrete beneath her.

“Oh my god, someone get a doctor!”

The frantic scream was the last thing Sandy heard before her innards were replaced with some kind of black hole, draining all the remaining energy from her limbs. She swayed and her eyes rolled back into her eyes as nausea crept up from her abdomen to her head.

And just like that, the world around her went black.

 

 

Jared’s heart stuttered when he pulled up in front of Lionel Hall for the second time that night.

Jensen was sitting on the edge of the stairs, looking wrecked and yet gorgeous at the same time.

He was wearing a forest green sweater over a white collared shirt, blue skinny jeans and a pair of battered looking Converse.

His glasses were perched low on his nose and his hair was styled slightly, dirty blond strands sticking up in a sensuous tousle. Jared dropped the kickstand of his Harley and killed the engine.

“You’re early,” Jensen stubbed his cigarette out on the sidewalk and Jared pulled him in for a languid kiss, hand moving down to the small of his back to pull him flush against him.

“You complaining?”

“No,” Jensen ducked his head and there was something off with his whole posture, with the way he avoided eye contact and with the way his hands were shaking minutely.

Jared’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jensen blurted out.

Too fast.

The flicker of discomfort that crossed Jensen’s features had been too obvious. The tension in his shoulders too palpable.

Jared tilted Jensen’s chin up. “Tell me."

“Can we just go? I’ll explain it to you, I swear.”

There was a pleading quality to his tone and Jared tried to think of the right thing to say.

Finally, he let out a slow exhale. “The tickets are valid until the end of the year, you know?”

Jensen gave him a weak smile. He sniffed, looked away, shoulders pulled up protectively around his neck. 

“I…” he cleared his throat. “I keep telling myself that it’s not so bad, that nothing really happened and that I was lucky, but I just can’t— I can’t seem to forget about what happened.”

Jared’s expression fell, realization slowly dawning on him. “You’re talking about the night at the bar.”

Jensen bit his lower lip. “I know it’s stupid and that I should probably just forget about it.“

“Jensen…”

“But every time I close my fucking eyes, he’s right there with me, holding me down and it’s like I’m right back in that goddamn bathroom—“

“ _Jensen_ ,” Jared’s voice grew more insistent.

Jensen blinked and then swallowed, eyes lifted to meet Jared’s gaze.

“Is there a place where we can be undisturbed? Like a closed off classroom or maintenance building?”

A look of confusion crossed Jensen’s features. “Uh… the indoor swimming pool is out of order.”

“Great,” Jared pocketed his keys. “Lead the way.” 

Jensen stared at him for a long moment, seemingly processing Jared’s words. “What about the fair?”

“We’ll go another time.”

 

 

The lights were dim in the old swimming hall.

Flickering fluorescents bathed them in a pearly white shine, silver shadows dancing across the rippling surface of the pool in front of them.

They had broken the security lock on the back door and slipped inside, safely hidden from the eyes of the bypassing students.

Jensen’s heart was in his throat, fingers shaking when Jared shrugged off his leather jacket and dropped it onto one of the abandoned sun loungers.

“Lose your sweater,” Jared kicked off his boots and tossed them into a corner along with his socks. He pulled off his shirt until he was only clad in a pair of jeans, bare feet against cool tiles. “Shoes, too. You can leave your shirt on if you want. I want you to be comfortable.”

Jensen did as he was told, shivering a little when the cool air hit his bare skin. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure what Jared had planned, but at this point, it didn’t really matter.

His fingers shook when he fumbled with the buttons of his dress shirt and then Jared was in his space, yanking the shirt open, buttons flying across the tiled floor and bouncing into all directions.

Jensen sucked in a breath and Jared captured the soft sound with his lips, almost reconciliatory while slipping the soft fabric of Jensen’s ripped shirt off his elbows. 

“C’mon,” he stepped back, dropping Jensen’s ruined shirt to the floor.  “Wide stance. Back to the wall.”

Jensen looked up at Jared with wonder in his eyes. “You’re gonna teach me how to fight.”

“No,” Jared shook his head. “I’m gonna teach you self-defense. Which, believe it or not, tries to avoid fighting.”

“But I thought—“

“You’ve seen some of the people we’re up against. They’re built like a ton of bricks and they fight dirty. I’m talking brass knuckles and steel pipes. You don’t wanna go up against them one-on-one if you can prevent it.”

“So what’s the point, if I don’t have the sliver of a chance?”

“The point is to _survive_ ,” Jared said. “The point is to fend someone off until you can get away or call for help. The point is not to get raped in the bathroom stall of some fucking bar.”

Jensen swallowed and looked away.

Jared sighed. “Look, I’m doing this to help you. But I need you to trust me, Jensen. This isn’t going to work otherwise."

“I do trust you,” Jensen said even when his heart was beating hard enough in his chest to hurt and when the acidic smell of chlorine stung in his eyes. “You know I do.”

„Alright,” Jared let out, before getting into a fighting stance. “The first thing you do is scan your opponent for potential weaknesses. You’ve got glasses, which tells me your vision will be impaired without them. If your attacker is smart, he’ll go for your face first.”

Jensen ghosted his fingers over the frame of his glasses. He had always been a bit self-conscious about them, but never really thought about how they could impact his fighting skills.

“Can you see anything on me that you could use to your advantage? A potential weakness?”

Jared spread his arms to the side, turned around in a small circle and all Jensen could see was six feet worth of perfection.He was tall and built like an ancient god. He had an extremely athletic frame, his arms and legs were toned to the max, his muscles only highlighted in the dancing orbs of light that danced across his heavily tattooed skin.

Jensen shivered and looked up at Jared’s face, at the way his hazel eyes peeked at him from under his unkempt mane. They shone in the color of a rich green with a few honey-colored swirls in them, like moss creeping over soil.

“Where would you attack me first?” Jared urged.

“Your hair is pretty long, so I guess…” Jensen let his sentence trail off, listening to the dull echo of his own words as they bounced off the walls. “I guess I could grab it.”

Like he sometimes buried his fingers in the silk strands when Jared sucked him off, indicating whether he wanted him to slow down or speed up his pace. 

“Good,” Jared praised. “Now I want you to attack me. Try to get a hold of my hair if you can.”

Jensen faltered. “Wait, what?”

“Twenty bucks say you won’t even touch me.”

Jensen huffed out a nervous laugh. He felt stupid and self-conscious, arms slung protectively around his middle. The wet tiles beneath his feet were slippery and a voice in the back of his mind was yelling at him that this could end badly.

That they probably shouldn’t have a martial arts session in an unsecured location like this.

If his mom still gave a shit about him, she would probably whack him on the head for being so reckless. Jensen swallowed, decidedly shoving the thought away.

“C’mon. What are you waiting for?” Jared demanded, stepping forward and shoving Jensen by the shoulder. “Attack me!”

Jensen lost his balance, staggering back a few steps.

He scowled. “What the hell, man?”

“You too scared or something?” Jared shoved him again, harder this time. “You just gonna let yourself be pushed around like some kind of coward? You such a fucking pussy you won’t even—“

Jensen growled and charged forward, fist shooting out in blind anger but Jared was fast, dodging to the side and wrapping his fingers around Jensen’s wrist at the same time.

He pulled Jensen forward, swinging his body past him and sending a forceful shove to his spine.

Jensen stumbled and caught himself on one of the dusty metal racks, heart racing in his chest.

“You’re letting your emotions get the better of you,” Jared explained in a calm voice, eyes cool. “You let them control your actions and rush into things half-cocked. Did you notice how easy it was for me to dodge your attack? That’s because I saw it coming a mile away.”

Jensen shot him a glower, wiping a hand across his mouth.

His heavy breathing and the soft lapping of water against tiles were the only sounds in the room.

“Again,” Jared commanded and this time, Jensen didn’t hesitate. He took a quick step forward, pulled back with his right fist and watched Jared dive away beneath his fist in an arched backward move.

He grabbed Jensen’s wrist again and used his left palm to land a swift blow to his elbow joint, sending a lightning bolt of  pain through Jensen’s entire arm and causing him to let out a sharp grunt of pain.

"Hurts like a bitch, doesn't it?" Jared had a sly grin on his face. “Now imagine I did this full force. I could snap your arm like a twig.”

Jensen winced when Jared released his hold and cradled his arm to his chest almost protectively, rubbing his elbows to sooth the pain away.

Jared hadn’t hurt him badly. But he’d hit him with enough force to make him feel it.

“Now you,” Jared instructed, giving Jensen just enough time to process the words before launching at him. Jensen sucked in a sharp breath and side stepped out of reach. He captured the taller man’s wrist and immediately landed an open-handed blow to his elbow joint, repeating all the moves from before.

Jared hissed but quickly recovered from the slight sting to his arm. “Good, that’s it. That’s a move to incapacitate someone. Now come at me again. I'll show you a slightly different one.”

Jensen did what he was told, but this time, instead of pushing his elbow, Jared grabbed his wrist and twisted it around his back, doubling Jensen over. Jared held him bent over like this for a few seconds, dangling him tauntingly over the rim of the swimming pool, watching his own reflection in the rippling surface of the water. The taller man was pressed up against him from behind, toned chest flush against Jensen’s sweat-covered back.

“This one is for restraint. Very effective if done right.”

Trying to free himself, Jensen yanked at his arm and then let out a strangled sound when a flash of agony shot down his spine. 

It fucking _hurt_. 

“Now if I do this,” Jared swung Jensen’s body around so fast he lost his footing and pressed a knee down heavily against the spot between Jensen’s shoulder blades to pin him down. With his fingers still tightly wrapped around Jensen’s twisted arm, Jared captured Jensen’s other arm and pulled it up against his head. “It will give me enough leverage to dislocate your shoulder.”

“Get off of me,” Jensen bucked up against him in protest, breathing heavy and face smushed against the wet tiles.

The heavy weight on his back was too similar to the way the guy had felt on top of him. The way Jared’s breathing felt against his spine, hot and heavy was suddenly too intimate, bringing up memories of a fumbling hand on his crotch and an aggressive, chapped mouth against his own.

“Jared, get off me! I fucking _mean it_.”

Jared must have noticed the panicked edge to his voice because the next second the weight was gone from Jensen’s back and he was climbing to his feet on shaky legs.

He felt vulnerable and exposed and so goddamn embarrassed, wiping at his eyes with shaking fingers and trying to get his damn breathing under control. 

“I-I’m sorry,” he croaked out miserably and turned around, unable to look Jared in the eyes.

But Jared was there the next second, a strong and comforting presence against his back, hovering close but not invading his personal space.

“Look at me,” Jared gently demanded. He gently grasped Jensen’s jaw and turned it around, forcing him to meet his tender gaze. “What in the world do you think you have to feel sorry for?”

Jensen pressed his lips together, shaking his head.

He couldn’t tell Jared that he felt _dirty_ and tainted. That he sometimes woke up crying at night and scrubbed his skin raw in the shower until the water turned ice cold.

“I just feel so ashamed.”

“Jensen,” Jared said softly, just a ghost of a whisper against wet skin. “There’s not a goddamn thing you need to feel ashamed of. What happened wasn’t your fault."

Jensen stared up at Jared through his tears. 

“What that guy did to you... Nobody expects you to just brush this shit off, alright? It will take time for you to come to terms with what happened and I just want you to know that I’m here, Jensen. If you need to talk or... I'm _here_.”

Jensen swallowed thickly and looked down when Jared takes his hand into his own, interlocking their fingers.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“We can stop if you want.”

“No,” Jensen’s expression smoothed over with determination as he wiped at his eyes, already feeling some of the tension from earlier leaving his shoulders and torso. “I'm good. Let’s finish this.”

“Okay. Let's try it one more time,” Jared conceded and then Jensen threw another punch at him, this time with the element of surprise on Jensen’s side.

Jared was fast, but not quite fast enough.

He tried to counter the attack but Jensen caught his arm and spun him around, mimicking his earlier actions down to a tee.

Jared’s back was knocked down to the ground and Jensen made the mistake of loosening his grip on Jared’s arm when the taller man ripped him to the ground with him, spinning him around until Jensen landed on top of him with a startled yelp.

Jared grunted but his arms instantly shot up to steady Jensen, both of them panting as they stared at each other in breathless surprise and shock.

“I’m sorry,” Jensen blushed and tried to get up but Jared held him in place, strong arms settling low on his hip. 

“Don’t be,” he said. “That was good. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

He brought his large palm up to Jensen’s flushed face and cupped his cheek softly. Jensen’s gaze flickering down to Jared’s soft lips, his shaking fingers splayed out over the inked feathers that covered the skin on Jared’s chest, right over his heart.

“Jared I…”

Jared brushed his thumb over the soft skin right below Jensen’s eye and leaned up to seal their lips with a kiss.

It was slow and sensual, comforting in ways words could never be. 

He ran his palm down Jensen’s bare spine, pulling him down until there was absolutely no space left between their bodies and Jensen could feel the slow beat of Jared’s heart against his chest.

And then Jared stopped, causing Jensen to growl in protest at the loss of heat on his mouth.

“What?” he asked when he noticed the mischievous grin on Jared’s lips. “What are you—“

He was left with just enough time for his eyes to widen before the taller man rolled them both to the side and pulled them off the edge of the pool.

They overbalanced and Jensen let out a noise of surprise as they tumbled into the ice cold water with a loud splash, head dunking under at the same time.

The cool liquid hit him with a piercing jolt and then Jensen resurfaced, coughing and sputtering, the jeans fabric hanging loosely off his legs and dragging him down.

Jared came up for air as well, flipping his hair back and spraying water everywhere, before bursting out in shaking laughter.

Jared laughed as his breast stroked his way to the other side of the pool. “That was fucking priceless.”

“So this is funny to you?” Jensen’s blond strands were plastered to his forehead as he glared over at the brunette. 

He splashed water at Jared’s in retaliation, laughing when it hit him in the face.

“Oh, you’re going down,” Jared growled and pushed himself off of the pool’s walls with his legs.

Jensen tried to swim away but the other man was faster, capturing him around the waist and lifting him out of the water. 

"No, stop it, Jared don't!" Jensen squealed as he was tossed back into the water with a splash, diving into the rippling waves and coming up for air only moments later.

He watched breathlessly as Jared pulled himself out on the edge of the pool, water glistening as it ran down his torso and the curved line of his back in small rivulets, his own chest still shaking with barely contained laughter.

Jared’s soaked jeans were riding low on his hips and Jensen swallowed, hard. "You giving up already? Too afraid of my revenge?”

Jared chuckled darkly and pulled off the soaking fabric of his jeans in front of Jensen. It slid down his legs with little resistance and the boxers followed suit, leaving Jared completely naked.

“Yeah, afraid isn’t really the expression I would use.”

Jensen licked his lips, tasting chlorine on his tongue.

He watched as Jared took a running start and dove head first back into the pool. Watched as he broke through the surface, water dripping down his nose and chin as he waded through the glimmering liquid, eyes vibrant in the glistening fluorescence.

Magnificent.

He was devastatingly beautiful out here in the moonlight, and Jensen idly wondered if there would ever be a day when the sight of Jared didn’t leave him as breathless as it did now.

Jared grinned like a shark and lunged forward, managing to catch Jensen by the waist.

He didn’t throw him this time, just curled around him like an octopus, protective, as he hooked his chin over Jensen’s shoulder and breathing hot against the shell of his ear. “This okay?”

Jensen hummed contentedly, treading water and turning his head to the side just far enough for Jared to see the soft smile curling his lips. “Yeah.”

Jared twisted him around in his hold and interlaced their fingers underwater, swimming back towards the shallow end of the pool, where the ladder is.

“Are you getting out?” a small smile furrowed Jensen’s forehead. He enjoyed the combined sensations of the ice cold water and Jared’s heated body against him.

“No. Just wanna make sure you’re in shallow water so you won’t drown when I fuck you.”

“Wow. You really know how to sweet-talk your way into my pants,” Jensen deadpanned with a disapproving little frown, even as he let himself be halfway lifted out of the water and settled on the steps of the pool’s ladder.

“See that’s the good thing about having a boyfriend,” Jared grinned, long fingers drifting against Jensen’s hips and trailing teasingly along the seam of his underwear. “I don’t have to sweet-talk you. You’re already mine.”

“How convenient,” Jensen grinned, trying to hide the fact that his heart had just stuttered in his chest at the casual way Jared had called him his boyfriend like it wasn’t a big deal.

Like he hadn’t just made it official.

They kissed low and languid like they have all the time in the world, the soft sound of water hitting the edge of the pool the only noise disturbing the quiet.

Jared opened Jensen’s pants and Jensen kicked them off, sighing a little in relief when the restraining fabric slipped off his legs and dwindled to the ground. Jared nipped at his collarbone, soothing the sting over with his tongue and Jensen tossed his head back with a quiet groan.

“So fucking hot,” Jared muttered against his damp skin, working his boxers off and palming the bare skin of his ass.

Jensen arched up into the touch and hissed in pleasure. “Fuck, Jared. Quit playing.”

Jared stopped and looked down at him, a slow grin curling on his lips. “Hmm… bet I can make you come untouched.”

“What are the stakes?” Jensen teased, knowing full and well how easy it was to come on the feel of Jared’s dick alone.

Jared smirked. “You’ll make me breakfast every day for the rest of the week.”

“Done,” Jensen chuckled. Jared was so easy when it came to food. “Now are you gonna get me off, or what?”

Jared’s teeth flashed predatorily as he dragged Jensen forward into a hungry kiss, their naked bodies sliding together in a wet catch and drag, tongues twisted in a sloppy, wet tangle and teeth catching on each other’s lips.

“Turn around,” Jared ordered when they broke apart. “I want your hands on the ladder. Knees apart.”

Jensen felt his heart kick up a notch in excitement at the dark undertone in Jared’s voice, his dick giving an excited twitch at the command.

When he didn’t follow the order straight away, Jared yanked him around, pressing in close from behind and kicking up waves of water around their joint waists. “I said knees apart.”

Jensen took a shaky inhale and curled his fingers around the cold steel of the ladder, tensing a little when Jared ran a hand possessively over the curve of his ass.

“ _Jared_ ,” he hissed sharply when Jared’s fingers pulled his cheeks apart. “If someone sees…”

“Nobody will see us,” Jared whispered against the column of his spine, gentle lapping at the trail of wetness on Jensen’s back, pressing suckling kisses against his collarbone. “Not if you keep quiet.”

“Fuck,” Jensen grunted when Jared pressed a probing finger against his twitching hole, pressing only the tip in and biting down hard on Jensen’s shoulder at the same time.

A full-body shudder wracked Jensen’s spine and goose bumps broke out on his skin at the mixed sensation of uncomfortable fullness and Jared’s hot panting breaths against his arching spine, fingers slipping on the handrail of the ladder.

“More,” Jensen gasped out and then groaned when Jared added another finger, starting to move them in and out of his body in a tantalizing rhythm. It was an odd sensation, with the heat of Jared’s mouth against his sensitive neck; fingers working him open almost mechanically while the cool water lapped at their skin. “Guh, fuck. Need you, Jay.”

The biggest thrill of it all is the one of getting caught, knowing how much was at stake if somebody actually did walk in on them. Jensen tried to keep an eye out for the door, but he couldn’t really stay focused, too distracted by the feel of Jared’s fingers twisting inside of him.

Jared shoved Jensen’s head forward against the tiled edge of the pool and Jensen’s fingers slipped against the wet metal when Jared’s fingers touched the bundle of nerves deep inside of him.

“Ah,” he clawed at the floor, fingernails screeching loudly against the wet ceramic as he pressed back into the delicious pressure, hips bearing back into Jared’s fingers. “Right there. Jesus fuck, Jared. I need—”

Jared laughed, voice muffled against the damp skin on his neck, holding his eagerly twitching hips in place and driving the fingers of his other hand forward with a little more force every time he moved them. “Shh… I've got you.”

Jensen had forgotten how to breathe, his pupils blown as he lost himself to a world of sensation.  “Just fucking do it, c’mon.”

“Look at you getting all impatient,” Jensen could practically hear the grin in Jared’s voice. He curled his fingers inside of him, twisted them sharply and bitten-off shout of pleasure tumbled past Jensen’s lips as his eyes rolled back in his head. “Shh… _quiet_. Wouldn’t want for your prissy college classmates to find you like this, would you now?”

“Fuck me,” Jensen panted roughly against the tiles, hard nipples rubbing torturously against ice cold tiles and stinging with an overload of sensation. His skin was burning wherever Jared touched him, his blood pulsing through his shaking body at accelerated speed.

Jared still wasn’t lining himself up against him and it took him an embarrassingly long time to realize why. 

They didn’t have a fucking condom.

Well, fuck.

This shit was getting old real quick.

Against better knowledge, Jensen was half-tempted to just urge Jared on to fuck him bareback. He was on birth control and he really really needed for Jared to just flip him over and fill him up for good, no barrier between them. 

God, he wanted that. 

So fucking much.

“Come for me,” Jared looped a strong arm around him to tweak at his hardened nipples. A ripple of pleasure shot through Jensen’s body and his body arched back when Jared’s fingers picked up a faster pace, shoving into him harder than before.

“God, Jay, please—“

“Want you to come for me, Jen,” Jared angled his fingers in just the right way and sent an explosion of white bursting through Jensen's vision as he came undone.

After that, Jensen wasn’t aware of when or how it happened, but he must have lost his hold on the ladder, body drifting away and face nearly dipping into the pool water as his limbs turned to Silly Putty.

“Woah, easy,” Jared grabbed him around the waist and gently lifted him up against the wall of the pool, cradling his face in his oversized palms and digging fingers into his cheeks. “You good?”

Jensen was too spent to respond in full sentences, so he let out a tiny whimper instead, head falling forward against Jared’s neck, breath still coming in hot little pants against Jared’s pulse point.

Jared buried his fingers in the younger man’s damp hair and closed his eyes.

Yeah, Jensen could definitely get used to this.

 

 

“You don’t think they had a camera in there somewhere, do you?” Jensen trailed lazy kisses over the tattoo on Jared’s left shoulder blade.

“If they do, we definitely need to get that tape somehow.”

Jensen groaned and buried his face in Jared’s neck, muffling his laughter against the sensitive juncture between his collarbone and throat. “They’re gonna kick me out of Harvard for desecrating the public swimming pool.”

Jared chuckled and pulled Jensen in for an open-mouthed kiss. “We should probably get going.”

“Mhm,” Jensen brushed his nose against Jared’s. “We should.”

Jared reluctantly disentangled himself from Jensen’s naked body and fished his phone from his jacket pocket. Four missed calls were staring back at him from the display. Two from Steve, one from Chris, and one from an unknown caller.

Jared frowned at that. He usually didn’t give his private number out to people.

“Somebody call you?” Jensen asked from the side as he shimmied back into his brief, grimacing a little when the wet fabric settled over his groin and ass.

“Unknown caller,” Jared muttered absentmindedly and tried to shake off the growing unease that settled low in his stomach. “Does your phone have any bars? I don’t have reception in here.”

“No sorry,” Jensen shook his head. “Battery was empty this morning so I left it in the charging station.”

“We should get it before we leave,” Jared said, pocketing his phone and slinging an arm around Jensen’s waist. He let his hands trace the gentle dip of his back, fingertips hooking beneath the seam of his boxers. “There’s actually something else I would like to get your opinion on.”

“What’s that?”

“Couple of finance papers I found in Jeff’s house,” Jared said. “Balance statements, profit and loss accounts..."

“Sounds like fun,” Jensen said drily and Jared pushed him up against the wall. "Yeah. Figured it would be the kind of stuff you’re into.”

Jensen laughed and Jared sealed their lips together, once more, robbing him of his breath.

The moonlight fell in through the glass panels of the roof and cast a shiny halo around their heads, making their bare skin glow and shimmer in the dark.

They kissed until their lungs ached for air until their mouths were numb.

A couple of students walked by the building, chattering happily and a pair o headlights flashed in the dark.

Jensen’s eyes grow wide when the voices grew louder, their footsteps crunching against gravel. Jared looked past him, gaze sweeping out over the abandoned trail in front of the building and cursed under his breath. “Someone’s coming.”

“What?” Jensen whirled around, letting out a terrified little noise when he saw the group of shadowed figures approaching the building. “ _Shit._ Jared, we gotta get the hell out of here.”

They weren’t even fully dressed yet, some of their clothes still randomly strewn across the floor. Jensen scrambled back to gather up his Converse and the remnants of his black shirt, while Jared grabbed his jacket and made sure he had the keys to his bike.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Jared urged around a nervous laugh, watching Jensen slip and nearly crash over a sun lounger in his hurry to get out of the pool house.

Somebody was trying to enter from the back entrance, a girl’s voice, followed by the dark rumble of a guy and Jared grinned a little at the fact that the swimming pool might have been desecrated long before they had even come here.

Jensen yanked the door closed behind them just in time before the back door was opened and then they were both laughing, climbing over the fence, bare feet wet against the chilled grass and lungs burning with the icy evening wind.

“That was close,” Jensen huffed out a shaky laugh, shivering in the cold.

"Yeah, it was," Jared wrapped his leather jacket around Jensen's shoulders. It was the only dry piece clothing they had between them.

“I’m sorry we missed out on the art show.”

Jared tangled their fingers together. “We’ll take a raincheck.”

Jensen stopped in his tracks and waited until Jared looked at him. “Thank you… for tonight.”

Jared just quirked a smile. “Just so you know, I want pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.”

 

 

Jeff was pacing up and down the warehouse, cigarette clenched so tightly between his fingers as he took a shaky drag. “Jared’s going to kill me if he finds out.”

Ty spat a glob of saliva to the ground and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “He’s not gonna find anything out. Not unless you tell him.”

Jeff pressed his cigarette out on the table, his hands shaking. “Yeah, don’t be so fucking sure of that.”

“Maybe you should just come clean, tell everyone about your little deal with Lucian.”

Ty glanced up at Jeff from behind narrowed eyes and took a swig of his whiskey. “Or even better, you should grow a pair and get back into the gang life.”

“That's not gonna happen.” 

“Too scared?” Ty teased, chapped lips stretched wide around his yellow teeth.

“Don’t fucking test me, Olson,” Jeff slammed his fist down on the table hard enough for some of Ty’s whiskey to slosh over the rim of his glass and onto the documents beneath.

“You’ve got no fucking right to question my decisions,” Jeff grabbed the lapels of Ty’s coat and pulled him close, teeth locked in anger and eyes a deep shade of black. “Not when you’re part of the reason why we’re in this mess.”

“I wasn’t the one who decided to leave the gang business behind,” Ty growled out, shoving Jeffrey back by the shoulders with enough force to send him stumbling into a rusty oil barrel. 

“And I wasn’t giving up half of the entire fucking protection racket in South Boston to open up a fucking bike store.”

“I had a fucking child to look after!” Jeff snapped. “What was I supposed to do? Take an eight-year-old to a fucking heist in El Paso?”

“You were supposed to look out for your gang first! You were supposed to drop that little bastard’s ass off at an orphanage, like anyone else would have done in your position. That whore shouldn’t have gone and gotten herself killed if she didn’t want—“

Jeffrey had pulled his gun so fast from the back of his jeans, Ty never even had a chance to back paddle on his words. Grabbing the other man by the neck, Jeff slammed his face down against the table and pressed the muzzle of his Beretta smack to the middle of his forehead.

“Finish that sentence, I fucking _dare_ you,” Jeff snarled. “It will be the last motherfucking thing you’ve ever said.”

Ty smirked, even with a gun pressed to his forehead.

And in that instance, Jeffrey realized that something was off here- that something was terribly wrong.

Ty’s deep blue eyes glowed with malicious joy, lips curled in a way that was victorious where it really shouldn’t be.

Jeffrey felt his throat close up in realization. “You fucking son of a bitch. You knew all along, didn’t you? About my debt. About my deal with Lucian?”

Ty let out a throaty chuckle. “Took you long enough to figure that one out."

“You’re working for them?” Jeff’s jaw was tight enough to snap, teeth clenched so tight he could hear them grind against each other, whole body tense with blinding anger and betrayal.

Ty had been a mole, double-crossing them for far longer than Jeff dared to acknowledge.

He had given out information to the Reapers, probably playing into their hands the entire time while Jeff had trusted that motherfucker with his life.

“How long?” he bit out, slamming the butt of his gun down hard enough into Ty’s face to break his nose, the sickening crunch filling the humid air of the warehouse. He yanked his arm back and resettled the muzzle of the gun against Ty’s forehead, pulling back the safety with an audible ‘click’. “How long have you been working for them, you treacherous piece of shit, huh? Tell me or I swear—“

“Jeffrey, please,” a foreign voice caused Jeff’s head to snap around and his eyes to widen. “You shouldn’t raise your voice like this. It’s rude, you know?”

There in the doorway of the warehouse stood a man with a crooked nose and swampy skin, his black hair falling lifelessly into his button eyes.

Lucian.

Flanked by two of his goons.

Jeffrey’s heart froze in his chest, pulse quickening at the realization what a huge mistake it had been to come here.

He had walked straight into an ambush.

 

 

Jensen was still in the shower when Jared changed into a set of dry clothes from Jensen’s dresser.

He picked a loose pair of jeans and a simple black button-down, smiling when his gaze fell onto one of the many certificates hanging off of Jensen’s walls.

He was just about to take a closer look when Jensen’s answering machine from across the room suddenly went off, an electronic voice blaring through the speakers of his charging station.

“Hey, Jen,” Jared yelled, eyeing the irritating flashing light on Jensen’s home phone. “You got a couple of new voicemails!”

Jensen’s voice was muffled from the water and Jared crept closer to the bathroom door in order to better hear.

“Can you press play?” Jensen said. “Tell me who they’re from and I’ll call them back when I get out.”

 **‘You have 2 new messages. Message received 19:39:** _“Jensen, this is Sandy. I uh… I know it’s kind of weird for me to just call you like this in the middle of the day, but I wanted to tell you that…”_

Jared staggered a little in shock, everything inside him freezing at the sound of Sandy’s voice.

What the hell was she calling Jensen for?

How did she even know his number?

_“I just wanted to say that I made up my mind.  About Chad, I mean. I can’t… I can’t live without him. If anything, the past few weeks have taught me that. I want him to know about the baby. I went to the physician you recommended. She said it’s a girl. We’re gonna have a little girl, Chad and me. I just… god, you must think I’m crazy telling you all that, but I just… I wanted you to know.”_

Jared was paralyzed as he stared at the message recorder.

His mind was like a broken record, endlessly replaying Sandy’s words in his mind.

Sandy was pregnant.

She was pregnant with Chad’s child.

“Who were they from? I couldn’t really hear anything from the bathroom,” Jared looked up to find Jensen standing in the doorway, the happy smile dropping instantly from his lips as he took in the mortified expression on Jared’s face.

“Jared?” A slight tremor underlined Jensen’s tone as he took a step forward, freckles stark against pale skin. “What’s going on?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you liked the update! Thank you so much for all the incredible support! If you could spare a minute to share your thoughts with me that would be awesome!! Reviews make my day. As always, a huge thank you goes out to my Beta TheBoys. :)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for mentions of abortion, implied physical violence and torture, cancer, minor character death.

** **

**Open Road  
Chapter 16**

“Look, Jay, I can explain—“ Jensen started, lifting his hands in a placating manner.

“How long?” Jared’s jaw was locked tight enough to snap, his gaze focused on a point above Jensen’s shoulder like he couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes. “How long have you known?”

Jensen shifted, wiping his suddenly sweaty palms on the fabric of his jeans. “About three weeks.”

The silence that followed was so brittle it could snap.

When Jared finally trained his sharp gaze on him, Jensen kind of wished he hadn’t.

He looked like if someone offered him a loaded gun and an out-of-jail-free-card he’d have had no problem pulling the trigger.

“Three weeks,” Jared repeated in a low voice.

It might have sounded soft and calm to an ignorant observer, to someone who didn’t know Jared, but Jensen easily recognized the thinly masked fury in his tone.

Anyone who had ever fought with Jared, be it by his side or at his throat, knew that it was when he got quiet that he was most dangerous.

“You’ve known for three weeks and not said a goddamn word to me?” Jared took a step forward; the stone cold look on his face was void of any emotion.

Jensen could feel his own pulse pounding in his temples. “It wasn’t my place.”

And apparently, that was the thing that tipped Jared over the edge; his carefully-crafted steel façade of indifference crumbling under a wave of anger.

“You’re damn fucking right, it wasn’t,” Jared snapped, voice booming through the room as he jabbed an accusatory finger in Jensen’s face. “Sandy is pregnant with Chad’s kid and you’re conspiring with her behind my fucking back about it?"

Jensen shriveled beneath the hateful words and the weight of Jared’s punishing scowl; a look he’d seen on Jared before but never been on the receiving end of.

He sucked in a soft breath, hips bumping against the edge of his closet as he stumbled back. He had never felt so small in Jared’s presence before.

“I wasn’t conspiring against anyone,” he gave back defensively. “Sandy knocked at my door in the middle of the night. It’s not like I invited her over and asked her to share her feelings with me.”

“And when she told you she was pregnant?” Jared demanded harshly, eyes narrowed in anger. “You didn’t think that kind of info would classify as important? That I would like to fucking know about it? That _Chad_ deserved to fucking know about it?”

Jensen swallowed, feeling a little dizzy from Jared’s interrogation.

Every word was like shrapnel, tearing through the air with more force than Jensen had anticipated.

“She asked me not to tell you,” Jensen explained because that should be reason enough, right?

Sandy had turned to Jensen for advice on a very personal matter. She had desperately needed someone to talk to; someone to confide in and Jensen had been there to lend guidance when nobody else was willing to listen.

Was he supposed to break the trust she had put in him at the first chance he got– especially after Jared had made it so abundantly clear that Sandy wasn’t welcome within his ranks?

“Well, if she fucking _asked_ you that makes it okay,” Jared hissed, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“What she told me was under confidential—”

“Oh, give me a fucking break,” Jared growled. “Spare me this confidentiality bullshit! The usual rules don’t fucking apply to me, not when it’s about my friends- about my fucking family, you get that? Not when it’s about Chad becoming a father!”

Jensen licked his bottom lip; wide eyes staring up at Jared with a small bit of fear intermingled in the emerald green swirls.

It wasn’t like he had meant to keep secrets from Jared; like he had never laid awake at night, thinking about what Sandy had told him and how it would affect the gang- about how it would change things- how it would make them more _complicated_.

But Jensen had been sure, deep down inside, that Sandy would come around, eventually.

He had seen a spark of hope in her eyes that day in Harvard.

And he had seen the  _love_ there, too. Buried deep beneath a pile of grief, heartbreak, and confusion.

Love for Chad and her unborn child.

Love for a family she thought she could never have.

Jensen took a small breath and squared his shoulders, meeting Jared’s fury-filled gaze.

“Sandy was a _mess_ when she knocked on my door. She looked like she hadn’t caught any sleep in days. She was falling apart at the fucking seams, alright?”

“Well, thank god you were around, being the good Samaritan that you are,” Jared snorted bitterly.

Okay, screw this.

Jensen was done with being level-headed.

“You know what, fuck you, Jared!” he growled, sending the taller man stumbling back with a hard shove to his shoulders. “Sandy hadn’t even gotten herself checked out by a goddamn doctor by the time she approached me. For god’s sake, she was talking about an abortion! You seriously think I was going to cause her even more distress by getting the whole gang involved? By getting _you_ involved? Can’t you see that it wasn’t my fucking call to make?”

And yeah, in hindsight, Jensen probably shouldn’t have poked a tiger with a stick.

There was a flicker of shock crossing Jared’s features, but it quickly morphed into anger.

Next thing Jensen knew, was that he was pushed up against the wall, pinned in place by Jared’s arms as he towered threateningly over Jensen.

Jared had grasped his wrists in a tight hold, not painful, but restraining, _warning_.

Jensen stared up at Jared with blown pupils.

It wasn’t _fear_ he felt but apprehension. He knew Jared would never hurt him.

“I’ve cut you a lot of slack when it came to making decisions, Jensen, when it comes to getting involved with the gang business- a business you don’t know _shit_ about. But this time, you took things too far.”

Jared let go of his wrists and Jensen slumped a little, heart racing wildly in his chest.

“I know you’ve got your moral high grounds or whatever, but in a situation like this, you’re supposed to drop the high-and-mighty bullshit and show some goddamn loyalty to the people you’ve spent the past five weeks with- to your _friends_.”

Jensen slammed his mouth shut, heart hammering away wildly in his chest. “I don’t—“

“No you fucking listen to me,” Jared harshly cut him off, pointing a finger at his face. “You don’t trust me enough to tell me about whatever Sandy told you? Fine, whatever. But Chad? Don’t you think he should have a goddamn say on whether or not his kid gets to live? I mean, did you ever even stop to think about him in any of this?”

“Of course, I did,” Jensen protested, but it was useless.

The taller man was like a damn powder keg; one spark was enough to send sparks flying from his lips.

“No, you didn’t! All you thought about was your own fucking conscience because _god forbid_ you ever did anything that went against your fucking morals!”

Jared’s voice was loud enough to shake dust from the walls; the words knocked Jensen’s breath right out of his lungs.

He was stunned into silence by the fury of Jared's words, the unfairness behind them.

Somebody had once said that the strongest relationships were riddled with the most vicious arguments.

Because love stories, real love stories, weren’t written about boring shit from years of living in a happy wonderland of lame ass bullshit.

Jensen had always wanted to date someone whose mind was so different from his own that they would never run out of topics to argue about.

He had always thought that fighting was the secret ingredient that bred passion and love.

Deep, earth-shattering, appetite-losing, can’t-live-another-day-without-you-by-my-side _love_.

And maybe that was reason enough to put up with these arguments.

Maybe it was all the more reason to hold on to what they shared.

Jensen just hadn’t expected it to be so hard.

“Just put yourself in Chad’s position,” Jared forced out from behind clenched teeth. “What if Sandy had gotten that damn abortion? What if Chad had never even learned about his own child? I can’t believe you kept this from us when you knew how much was at fucking stake!”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Jensen whispered after a long moment of silence, because even if he understood Jared’s reasoning to some extent, even if it pained him to see the accusation in Jared’s glare, he wasn’t going to apologize for what he did. 

“Of course, you don’t,” Jared let out bitterly. He turned to leave and Jensen’s heart sank at the thought that they were going to part ways like this, after the nasty shit they’d just said to each other.

He opened his mouth to call Jared back, to say something to make things better, but the words were stuck in his throat like broken shards of glass, grating on his vocal cords.

Jared paused before Jensen’s door; fingers already clenched around the knob, and turned around as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him.

“Did you even stop to ask yourself why we’re pissed at her in the first place? Why we acted the fucking way we did around her?”

Jensen swallowed.

“Two weeks after Sandy had left, I found Chad passed out in a puddle of his own vomit after he decided to down a handful of sleeping pills with a fifth of Jack.”

Jensen blinked, taken aback by the revelation. He’d known Chad had been bad off after the break-up, but he never assumed things got this bad.

“You say Sandy was a mess when she showed up on your doorstep?” Jared asked, a grim smile curling on his lips. “Well, Chad’s been fucking suicidal ever since she dumped him.”

Jensen looked down at his feet, throat working around the lump in his throat.

“I didn’t know,” he eventually said in a small voice, even though it wouldn’t have made a difference.

“There’s a lot of stuff you don’t know about,” Jared said and vanished through the door without as much as a backward glance.

Jensen hesitated for only a moment, emotions warring within him; anger at Jared for acting like such an ass, anger at himself for not having anticipated this kind of reaction, and fear of what would happen next, before he let out a stream of curses and followed Jared out the door.

 

 

Jeff swayed on his feet as two guys kept him from falling face first into the puddle of his own blood.

It took him a second to breathe through the pain, blood-flecked spittle drooling from his slack jaw.

He could hear them laughing as they took turns beating him, but Jeff didn’t care about any of it.

He didn’t care about what happened to himself as long as the rest of the gang was safe.

As long as Jared was safe.

The rapid beat of his heart and the pulsing pain in his temples, the ice-cold, heart-gripping fear in his chest, had nothing to do with the fact that he was about to die and everything to do with Jared.

Jay, who was out there somewhere, not knowing that they had traitors within their own ranks.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Leroy cracked his busted knuckles right next to Jeff’s ear.

Jeff couldn’t see through the blood and sweat dripping into his eyes, but he could _feel_ Lucian’s warm breath on his neck, could smell the sweat clinging to his skin.

“You’re awfully quiet today, Morgan,” Lucian forced Jeff’s sagging head up by the hair, twisting the soggy strands brutally in his grasp. “Damn shame. I was looking forward to having a chat.”

The next blow came out of the blue, leaving him doubled over and gasping for air. There was a dull sound of bone giving way to someone’s knuckles and Jeff could feel one of his ribs crack.

“Remember how you told me you wanted out of the business? Clean slate and all, so that sweet little Jared wouldn’t get his brains blown out at age 24 like his whore momma did?”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Jeff snarled, viciously yanking at his restraints as he tried to lurch forward in blind fury.

He was going to rip that motherfucker to _shreds._

“Ahhh… still sore over the loss of your sweetheart, aren’t you?”

“Fuck. You.”

Leroy grabbed the back of Jeff’s neck and slammed his knee into Jeff’s middle, following the attack with a hard punch to Jeff’s face. Intense pain lanced through the shock and Jeff started choking, hacking up blood from behind cracked lips.

“You asked me for 50 thousand dollars to set up your neat little store, Jeff,” Lucian trailed off matter-of-factly as he looked down at his captive. “And you never paid one fucking cent of it back.”

“You gave me that money in return for the territory,” Jeff spat out, seething.

“Yeah, but see... now your store is on my territory. Which technically makes it mine.”

That lying, backstabbing piece of fucking shit.

Jeff should have known better than to make deals with someone like Lucian.

“See I think I’ll take over your nice little garage, the shop, maybe I’ll even take that ramshackle shithole you call a house. And then,” Lucian paused, a dark smile twisting his lips. “Then, I’ll make you watch while I kill every last goddamn member of your pathetic little gang.”

Lucian leaned back down, hovering right over Jeffrey’s ear as if the next words were only meant to be heard by the two of them.  “I’ll even get myself that college boy Jared seems to fond of. Between the fancy designer clothes and the private school, I’m sure his parents would pay a nice ransom in exchange for his life.”

Jeff shot a murderous glare up at Lucian at the threat.

“Don’t like my plan?” Lucian continued with a shrug. “You’re right, that would be a damn waste. I mean have you looked at the kid’s face? I bet I could make a fortune selling him out on the streets. What do you say? A fifty for a blowjob, a hundred if you want to stick it someplace else…”

Jeffrey felt sick at the word.

He had no doubt that Lucian was being serious; the bastard had a sadistic streak a mile long and he’d been pimping out girls and guys all over South Boston.

“Leave him out of this. He’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, but I think he does,” Lucian smiled. “See, something’s telling me that Jared would do pretty much anything to keep his little boyfriend from getting hurt.”

“You’re wrong,” Jeff growled. “The kid doesn’t mean shit to Jared.”

The truth was that Lucian’s words had hit right home.

Jeff knew his boy and he knew that Jared would catch a bullet for Chris or Katie, or even Chase any time of the fucking day, but for Jensen? Jared would sell his own soul for the boy and not think twice.

Lucian clicked his tongue. “Nah, that boy of yours is head over fucking heels. And he’s gonna be just as broken up over the death of this kid as you were when your lovely girl kicked the bucket. Like your own little family tradition.”

“You want your goddamn money?” Jeff spat out. He coughed, grimacing at the coppery tang of blood that filled his mouth. “Fine, I'll fucking give it to you. Just leave them out of this. This is between the two of us.”

“A few weeks ago I would have probably said yes,” Lucian carded his bony fingers through Jeffrey’s sweat soaked strands. “But then your boy decided to start up shit in my territory. Breaking into my clubhouse, beating up my men. I don’t take that lightly.”

Jeff fought hard not to growl something back in response.

They all knew this had nothing to do with the bar brawl or with what Jared did at the clubhouse.

It didn’t even have to do with the money.

Not really.

“Olson,” Lucian clapped the bulky man on the shoulder and smirked, eyes never wavering from Jeff’s heavy-lidded gaze. “Get me the boy and bring him here. I want him alive, you hear me?”

Ty’s lips curled into a predatory grin. “Piece of fucking cake.”

 

 

For what seemed like the thousandth time in the same month, Jared found himself at the hospital, the ugly, mint green wallpaper of the waiting room looming over him like an oppressive cloak of vomit.

As if their situation wasn’t already bad enough, Sandy had gotten a fucking panic attack, landing herself in the gynecology for observation.

Apparently, she’d had some kind of freak-out, thinking Chad had died when somebody carried a fucking body bag past her.

Jared didn’t really catch all the details. He zoned out after the whole panic attack thing.

“Here,” Jensen walked up to him and held out a cup of steaming coffee.

Jared took it quietly, offering no thanks in return.

He was so fucking mad, that he could barely stand to be near him, could barely look him in the eyes.

“How is she?” he forced out before taking a sip of the scalding brew in his hands.

“She’s fine,” Jensen returned and there was obvious worry lacing his words.

The younger man’s eyes were distant and filled with a sense of guilt that Jared knew he himself had put there earlier.

_Good._

It had hurt to think that Jensen wouldn’t confide in Jared about something as pivotal as Sandy’s pregnancy.

It made Jared think that what they’d built up between them in the past weeks had been an illusion, a bubble that was bound to burst as soon as Jensen’s morals were questioned.

Something that couldn’t possibly last forever, because Jared’s whole life was filled with shit like this- just one disaster after another, the next bad thing already waiting around the corner.

“The baby?” Jared asked in a tight voice, fingers tightening around the Styrofoam cup.

He didn’t allow himself to look up into Jensen’s eyes.

Meeting the younger man’s gaze would undoubtedly make him lose a hold of the gut-clenching, hair-raising, partly irrational surge of fury that had taken a hold of him. Because deep down inside Jared knew that one look into Jensen’s eyes, into the hurt that was now doubtlessly lingering in the depth of his moss green pools, would be enough to make him cave.

Enough to make him want to _apologize_.

Enough to make him long for a simple brush of their fingers or a reconciliatory kiss that would say _‘I’m still mad’_ and _‘I want you to trust me’_ and _‘Nobody’s ever been able to mess with my mind - my fucking heart- the way you do’._

The silence between them dragged on and Jared’s worn-thin patience snapped like a rubber band that had been pulled too tight.

“Fuck, Jensen. Is the kid alright?”

Funny how a baby seemed to be their biggest problem not even an hour ago and now, with the child’s life hanging in the balance, Jared couldn’t bear the thought that Sandy might have lost it.

Jensen sighed, sounding tired. “Do you even care?”

“Are you fucking serious?” Jared spun around on him, eyes flashing dangerously.

Sure, Jared hadn’t been thrilled to hear that they would have to deal with a child on top of everything else, but that didn’t mean that he was a heartless bastard.

Jensen deflated a little, wiping a hand over his eyes. “From what I heard, the baby is doing fine.”

Jared closed his eyes. “Good. That’s good.”  

His hands were still shaking, lungs dragging in air after a terrified pause.

“Her hip took the brunt of her fall when she fainted,” Jensen went on. “The baby’s health could be affected by the stress Sandy’s under, but the test on her fluid levels and the ultrasound both turned out okay. They are monitoring her for cramps and bleedings right now.”

Jared nodded and looked away.

He cleared his throat, relief pulsing through his veins, washing away some of the pent-up anger and frustration that had built up in his chest and heart over the past two hours. “Jensen listen—“

The elevator at the end of the floor pinged and the rusty door to the gynecology opened, preventing Jared from finishing what he meant to come off as an apology.

The two of them turned around just in time to see Chad rushing out of the elevator, Chris and Steve hot on his trail.

Chad made a straight line for Jensen, moving amazingly fast for somebody who had signed himself out of the ICU not even two days ago. “I’m gonna fucking end you, you lying piece of shit!”

Chad pulled back his fist, aiming for Jensen’s face and it was like an invisible flick was switched in Jared’s head.

His hand shot up, lightning quick, just in time to capture Chad’s fist before it could impact with Jensen’s face.

“You are not going to touch him,” he growled, shoving Chad back and sending him stumbling.

“Fuck you!” Chad fumed, eyes glinting furiously over at Jared. “You knew all along and never said a goddamn word!  I asked you if she’d come to fucking visit me and you lied to my fucking face!”

“I didn’t know she was pregnant,” Jared kept his voice low, knowing that his friend was only letting off steam; that Chad was trying to come to term with what happened in his own ways. “None of us did. We would have told you if we’d known.”

“You should have told me either way!”

“Why?” Jared fired back, tossing his arms out to the side. “So she could break your heart all fucking over, again?”

“So I had a fucking chance to make things right between us!” Chad’s face was flushed red with anger and Jared swallowed, trying to keep his own emotions in check. “You had no fucking right to take that decision away from me!”

“You’re right, maybe I didn't,” Jared admitted, raising his hands placating manner. “Maybe we should have fucking told you that she had visited. But either way, I was only trying to keep you from getting hurt.”

The heartfelt confession managed to take some of the air out of Chad’s sails.

There was a moment of silence. Then Chad looked up at Jared with glistening eyes; some of his earlier anger draining from his posture and expression.

“Sandy… is she—” he stammered, unable to finish his own question and Jared exchanged a long look with Jensen before letting out a soft sigh.

“She’s alright. Just freaked out because you signed yourself out AMA.”

“The baby?” Chad asked in a shaky voice, hands twisting into the fabric of Jared’s shirt.

“The kid’s fine, too.”

That was the final straw. Chad gave a jerky nod and raised a shaking hand to his mouth. It was like the news of what had happened; of what was going to happen hadn’t really sunk in until that moment.

“I’m g-gonna be a…?”

“I know, poor kid, huh?” Jared tried to lighten the mood with a shaky smile.

Chad cursed loudly under his breath and then spun around just in time to hide the worst of his break-down, body bowed forward as he squeezed his eyes shut.

Jared sighed and yanked Chad against his chest, one hand gripping the back of his neck as he held him tight. “It’s alright, man. We’ll figure it out.”

Chris had wrapped an arm around Chad’s neck from the side, muttering silent reassurances into his ear and Steve just stood by with a solemn expression on his face.

They stayed like this for a moment, taking and giving reassurance in equal measures.

When a nurse walked up to the shortly afterward, informing them that they could visit Sandy, Jared’s eyes automatically flicked up to where Jensen had been standing, only to find him gone.

His heart dropped, pupils flying around in an attempt to find Jensen in the hospital crowd, but he couldn’t spot the younger man anywhere.

_Fuck._

 

 

Jensen had fallen in love with the pediatric ward the first time he’d stumbled across it.

The sound of children’s laughter had drawn him in like a moth to the flame.

He had always loved children.

Maybe it was because he’d always taken his role as the older brother so seriously, watching out for his younger sister Mackenzie when they were younger.

Or maybe it had something to do with his biology and the fact that his body was capable of holding life inside, unleashing some kind of intrinsic maternal instinct in him. 

Whatever the reason, Jensen had just always felt this special affinity for children and they had always kind of been drawn to him in return, dragging him off to tea parties or to play cowboys and Indians.

There was just something about the sound of a child laughing that never failed to untie all the knots in his stomach.

A kid’s happiness was infectious and what Jensen needed now more than ever was a reminder of all the good there was in the world.

Something to distract him, when life got a little too rough.

“Jensen,” a man in his late fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and a white coat came walking down the light-flooded hallways and Jensen cringed internally at the sight.

“Dr. Mayne,” he held out his hand, trying not to let his own guilt for not having been around in so long show on the outside. “How are you doing, Sir?”

The older man must have lost 5 pounds since the last time Jensen had seen him and there were dark circles under his eyes that spoke of many sleepless nights.

It threw Jensen off a little, instant worry settling deep in his guts.

“I haven’t seen you around in a while,” Mayne said. “I suppose you heard about what happened?”

“About what happened, Sir?” Jensen repeated dully, unable to shake the dark foreboding that seeped into his bones.

His heart ceased to beat, breath trapped in his chest when the doctor’s expression morphed to one of compassion.

“Suzie Miller… the splenectomy. I’m sorry, Jensen. I know you were close to her.”

_No._

Panic started like a tightening of his chest, as if his lungs were trying not to let another breath in, but instead just shut down and die. Then the breath came, shallow and hollowed out by pain, so much of it that his ribs started to ache.

Numb with grief, Jensen forced his cracked lips open, unable to look into the doctor’s eyes. _“_ When?”

“Two days ago.”

“A splenectomy?” Jensen whispered incredulously, his whole body shaking.

Suzie had been fighting leukemia for so long; she’d survived years of chemotherapy and radiation treatment only to get killed over a run-of-the-mill splenectomy? A surgery performed so often, Jensen himself could have done it blind and with one hand tied behind his back?

“Who was the physician on duty?” Jensen hissed out through a blur of tears.

“Jensen…” the older man sighed.

“It’s a goddamn standard procedure!” Jensen forced out through gritted teeth, wiping angrily at tears streaking his cheeks.

“I can assure you, we did everything we could.”

He should have been there.

He should have spent more time with her in her last weeks, her last days… distracting her from the pain.

He should have been holding her hand, promising her ponies and cotton candy for their imaginary wedding.

He should have been there for her, talking to her, making her smile. Just one last time.

Remorse hit him like a sledgehammer, making him sick to his stomach.

He couldn’t believe he’d been off somewhere, having fun, while Suzie was…

“How d-did she—“

“Septic shock,” the doctor said ruefully, lowering his gaze. “There was nothing we could have done.”

Then he cleared his throat, looking down at his watch. “Listen, I gotta get back to work. I’m sorry you had to learn it this way.”

Jensen felt the doctor squeeze his neck in a brief goodbye before he was left there by himself, trying to piece himself back together.

 

 

It was late at night when Tom woke to the sound of the front door falling closed.

Always having been a light sleeper, he opened his eyes and stared into the darkness, breath trapped in his throat as he listened to the soft movement outside.

It had been over a week since Jared had dragged Jensen’s unconscious form over the doorstep and even longer since they’d last shared an honest-to-god conversation with one another.

Tom tried not to let it affect him, tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter, that they were still friends. But the truth was, he missed hanging out with Jensen and it stung to think that they might never go back to the way things had been between them.

Tom could hear Jensen’s footsteps, soft and hesitant as they crossed the living room space, halting just outside of his door.

He frowned and reached for the lamp on his nightstand just as a dark figure slipped into his room.

“Jensen?” Tom mumbled when his heart suddenly slammed to a halt at the sight that greeted him.

Jensen’s eyes were red-rimmed and blotchy, his face streaked with tears.

He looked like someone had sucked the color right out of him: white skin, matted hair, gaze dull and glazed over with pain.

“Jensen, what—“

“Suzie died,” the words grated like gravel against Jensen's throat. “She’s gone.”

It took a second for Tom to make the connection in his mind, but then he remembered the way Jensen wouldn’t shut up about the brave little girl with the tooth gap and hopeful eyes in the pediatric ward.

The one with leukemia.

Tom’s heart sank.

He lifted his blanket in silent invitation and Jensen only hesitated for a second before he slipped under the warm blankets and buried against Tom’s side.

Tom wrapped both his arms around Jensen’s quivering back.

“I’m sorry.”

He could feel his own throat clog up at the way Jensen’s fingers dug into his back almost painfully, holding on for dear life.

It wasn’t long before the first tears started to fall from Jensen’s chin and soak Tom’s shirt.

He cried until he was utterly spent; until he had no tears left to shed.

Eventually, his breathing evened out to a calm rhythm and his fingers relaxed against Tom’s side.

 

 

The next morning, Jensen awoke to the pounding sensation of a headache and a hot body pressed up against his own.

He blinked his eyes open on a soft groan, frowning when he felt the curvy outline of a woman half-draped over his chest.

Danneel’s hair was pulled up in a messy bun as she flicked through a lifestyle magazine, arms propped up on Jensen’s chest and nerdy glasses perched low on her nose.

She was wearing her bunny slippers and a loose pair of slacks she had doubtlessly stolen from either Jensen or Misha, not even noticing the way Jensen squirmed uncomfortably beneath her.

“What are you doing here?” Jensen asked with a tired frown, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

“Morning, sunshine,” she leaned over to press her lips against his cheek in a brief kiss.

It had him stunned for a second.

“Tom called me for reinforcement. Said you needed an extra-special-lazy-Sunday with your super awesome friends to lift your spirits.”

Jensen winced when her skinny elbow dug painfully into his ribs. “And you decided to kick it off by using me as a couch table?”

“We decided you need the full package deal: hugging, crying, full-on body contact… the whole nine yards. Misha brought his Star Wars collection and Tom is in the kitchen, preparing his greasy breakfast special for hangovers and heartbreaks.”

“I’m not hung over,” Jensen protested weakly. “Or heartbroken.”

He winced at that, thinking back to how angry Jared was last night- to the things he’d said.

_I can’t believe you kept this from us when you knew how much was at fucking stake._

_This time, you took things too far._

Danneel gave him a sad little smile like she could read the sadness in his eyes- like she knew that there was more than just Suzie’s death weighing his heart down.

“C’mon,” She jabbed her elbow lightly in his side. “A little grease never killed anyone.”

 

   
When Jared knocked on Jensen’s door, the last thing he expected was for a red-haired girl in bunny slippers to open the door.

“Hey,” he said a little dumbfounded, scratching the back of his neck. “Is Jensen home?”

The girl scanned his body from top to bottom, eyes moving slowly from his tousled hair to the black ink peeking out from beneath the popped collar of his leather jacket.

Under different circumstances, Jared would have smiled at the way she shamelessly checked him out.

“You’re Jared. _The_ Jared,” she realized with something akin to awe in her tone.

Jared looked a bit dumbfounded at that. “Uh, yeah… I guess.”

“Wow,” she grinned up at him. “I mean I already knew you’d be good-looking, Jensen’s got great taste in men, but _damn._  You’re gorgeous.”

Jared couldn’t help but crack a smile at that.

He’d been called many things before, but _gorgeous_ hadn’t been one of them.

“Well, you’re not half bad yourself.”

She was the kind of girl any football jock would try to go for; dream body, strawberry blond hair and bright eyes with long, girly, lashes.

“And you’re charming too!” the girl gushed happily. “Six-foot worth of Texan charm and muscle. No wonder Jensen picked you over that asshat, Matt.”

Jared chuckled despite himself. He liked her already.

When the girl just continued to grin up at him with a dreamy shine in her eyes, Jared eventually cleared his throat. “Listen, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I really need to talk to Jensen. So if you could just tell me if he’s home or—“

“I’m here.”

Jared’s head snapped up to find Jensen standing in the doorway next to the girl.

His eyes were red like he’d been crying and Jared’s breath caught in his throat, the girl instantly forgotten.

His mouth dried up in dread at the sight of Jensen’s misery, mind racing to think back to all the things he’d said to Jensen in anger the day before.

“You alright?” he asked, throat working.

Just because he was pissed, didn’t mean he cared less for the man in front of him; didn’t mean he couldn’t still be worried sick about Jensen’s wellbeing- his safety.

Seeing Jensen in any kind of pain or discomfort was almost physically painful for him; the urge to somehow make it better- to lessen the hurt and protect Jensen from further harm was overpowering.

“Fine,” Jensen gave back curtly and that one syllable was enough to let Jared know that he wasn’t fine at all, that he was barely fucking holding himself together.

“How’s Sandy?” Jensen changed the topic, wrapping his arms around his chest as if to physically distance himself from the scene- as if to withdraw from the moment- from _Jared_.

He looked like he was one blow away from breaking.

Jared picked his next words carefully. “She’s good. Better now that she knows Chad’s alive. They’re reconnecting.”

Jensen pressed his lips together and nodded jerkily, looking pale and worn-out in a way Jared had never seen him before. “What are you doing here, then? Shouldn’t you be with them? Figuring out your next steps or something?”

There was residual bitterness from their fight but Jared detected something else, resting beneath. A different source of pain that bothered Jensen.

“I was worried about you,” Jared returned because was something he had no trouble admitting.

He’d been out of his fucking mind with concern the night before after Jensen had just vanished.

The thought that someone might have come after Jensen had driven him crazy.

“Worried like you were worried about Sandy?” Jensen gave back sarcastically and that was when the girl finally cleared her throat, sensing the awkwardness.

“I’m just gonna—“ she gestured back towards the door, shooting a wary look between Jensen and Jared as she stumbled back towards the dorm room. “I’m gonna give you two a minute.”

The door closed behind her, leaving them alone in the empty hallway.

Jensen looked even worse from up close; his expression distant as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

It took some conscious effort not to lean in for a simple touch or a brush of their fingers, the lack of physical contact almost painful at this point.

“You have a nasty habit of disappearing on me,” Jared said slowly, testily, like he wasn’t sure how far he could go with Jensen while he was in this state.

“Maybe you should start asking yourself why that is,” Jensen gave back curtly, never one to back down easily and Jared felt himself bristling at the snarky undertone in his voice.

“You think this is a joke or something?” Jared asked in a sharp voice. “How would you feel if I suddenly took off without a fucking word of goodbye? If I just switched off my phone because I couldn’t be bothered to talk to you?”

Jensen paled, the thought draining all the blood from his face and making his freckles stand out against his ghostly white skin like sprinkles of brown on an untouched canvas.

“I sent you a text message.”

“Yeah, after two fucking hours of radio silence,” Jared snapped, some of his anger from the night before resurfacing. “What the hell were you thinking, Jensen?"

Jensen was standing there in his holey jeans and threadbare shirt, bare feet against the tiled floor and looking more beautiful than he had any goddamn right to be.

“I didn’t know I have to report to you every time I want to go somewhere.”

A dark look settled deep in Jared’s hazel eyes and Jensen knew he’d said the wrong thing.

“Are you _trying_ to piss me off or does it come naturally to you at this point?”

“You know what, I just… I’m _done_ , Jay. I can’t go at it with you again. Not right now,” Jensen said, walking towards the door. “Just drop it, alright?”

He opened the door and gasped when it shut to his surprise.

He looked over his shoulder to find Jared with his palm pressed against the door, a stone-cold expression on his face.

“You’re _done_?” Jared repeated incredulously, eyes narrowing as he captured Jensen’s wrist. “You don’t get to run out on me like this. No one’s leaving until we get this thing clear.”

“Get what clear?” Jensen tried to free himself from his grasp and failed, cursing under his breath when Jared’s hold on him only tightened. “You’ve made your thoughts abundantly ‘ _clear’_ last night, don't you think? I mean why would you even want me around, bothering you with my fucking _moral high grounds_? I don’t know shit about your goddamn business anyway, right? Isn't that what you said?”

Jared growled and squeezed Jensen’s wrist. “Don’t throw my words back at me.”

A couple of students passed them by and sent them curious glances from the side.

Jared took a deep breath and held it, deciding it was time to scram. “You need anything from inside?”

“What? No, why—“

“This isn’t a conversation we should have in the hallway of your college dorm room.”

“But I—“

“C’mon,” Jared dragged the younger man along to the staircase. “Let’s go somewhere quiet.”

 

 

Jared drove them to a peaceful spot in the northwestern suburbs of Boston.

The lakeside was pungent with the fragrance of pinewood and as Jensen slowly climbed off Jared’s backseat, he felt as if an invisible weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

The water was ringed with green hills and at the ragged shoreline was a tangled mass of gnarled tree roots writhing down into the crystal clear surface.

For a day in early November, the lake was flat as a mirror, gently reflecting the quiet scenery around it as if time itself had frozen all around them.

From the tall pines surrounding the lake’s edge came no sound or movement, no birds chirping or rustle of branches.

Jensen had expected for some campers to be close, but it was probably already too cold to sleep in a tent around this time of the year.

He’d come to the Mystic Lakes before, sometimes to study or for a late night swim after training.

Tourists and locals used it as a way to escape the frenetic stressfulness and hectic of everyday life.

Jensen stepped closer to the lake’s edge, feeling Jared’s gaze low and heavy on his back as he crouched down next to the shore and dipped his finger into the cool water.

From six feet up the surface looked opaque green– kinda like the color of Jensen’s eyes, but up close, the water was clear enough to see the plants and life beneath the rippling surface.

It was like he was peering through a window glass, smudged by the sticky fingers of small children.

Which reminded him of why they were here in the first place.

Suzie.

Sandy’s unborn child.

The chubby-cheeked toddler with Jared’s dark curls and Jensen’s bright green eyes that wouldn’t leave his mind, no matter how hard he tried to forget it.

Jared sat down on the patch of grass beside Jensen, the lack of contact evident where they would have been bumping shoulders and legs not even a day ago.

They were silent for a long time, staring at the peaceful scenery around them.

Eventually, Jared lit up a cigarette and took a couple of drags before handing it over to Jensen, releasing a cloud of cold smoke into the winter air.

“What happened last night?”

Jensen opened his mouth, a lie already forming on his lips, but Jared wasn’t having it. 

“I can see that something’s up besides what happened with Sandy.”

Smoke curled in Jensen’s airways, eyes watering from more than just the familiar bite of nicotine.

“You remember Suzie?”

Jensen’s fingers trembled around the burning tip of the cancer stick in his hands. He watched the glowing embers, the bright orange glow of the fire and smiled sadly at his own stupidity.

Here he was, smoking to deal with the pain of having lost someone to cancer.

Disgusted with himself, Jensen put the cigarette out on a brittle tree stump, watching it go out through a blur of shameful tears.

“She died,” he forced out, hating the way his voice wavered.

Jared sat still for the longest moment, just taking in the words, letting them sink in.

Then he swallowed hard, Adam’s apple moving up and down beneath the smooth complexion of his skin.

His eyes turned glassy and distant and just when Jensen thought Jared wasn’t going to offer up any words in return, the taller man looked at him— really l _ooked_ at him, like he hadn’t done since before their fight last night, with nothing but sympathy in his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Jared breathed out into the night air, his voice so soft; Jensen barely heard it over the rustle of leaves around them.

“It’s okay,” Jensen sniffed, drawing random patterns into the earth with his fingertips.

It wasn’t okay. It really fucking wasn’t.

Suzie never got a real shot at life.

She never got to finish school or get drunk or fall in love with someone.

She was too young. Too innocent.

And not a damn thing about any of that was okay.

“You know it wasn’t your fault, right?” Jared fixated him with an intense stare; the kind that gripped you tight and went straight to your core.

And it was funny how well Jared already seemed to know him, how well he seemed to understand him sometimes. Well enough to recognize that it wasn’t just grief weighing Jensen’s heart down, but _guilt_.

Jensen wanted to nod his head and say ‘yes’, just so their conversation could end here, so Jared wouldn’t have any reason to plow deeper into the pile of misery that was Jensen’s mind.

But his lips were frozen in the chilly winter air, unable to form words.

Jared just continued to look at him. “There’s nothing you could have fucking done.”

Jensen’s body grew cold. He wrapped his arms around his middle in a futile attempt to stop the ice from spreading through his veins.  

“I should have been there.”

“And then what?” Jared glared at the water as if it was somehow to blame for the situation they were in. “What the fuck could you’ve done to prevent this from happening?”

“You don’t get it, okay?” Jensen hissed, driving a hand through his hair. “It’s not just that I wasn’t there for the surgery, it’s that I didn’t even _notice_ she was dead! She looked at me like I hung the fucking moon and I failed her in ways that _I can’t even_ —“

His mouth snapped shut the second their eyes met, his breathing loud and ragged in the silence.

Jared couldn’t even begin to realize what was going on in the younger man at that moment, but the emotions warring in Jensen’s eyes- the raw guilt and pain and self-hatred- there, were so evident it stole his breath away for a second.

“She asked me to visit her before the surgery and I just  _forgot_ about it. She died while I was too busy fixing bikes and getting fucked to even notice it happened!”

Jared’s world shifted on its axis for a moment, Jensen’s words echoing dauntingly through his mind.

He wasn’t sure what was worse; the fact that Jensen blamed himself for that little girl’s death or the fact that he thought he had somehow failed her by simply living his own life.

“You seriously think you’re less of a man- less of a _doctor-_ just because you took care of yourself for a change instead of everyone else around you? Because you let yourself enjoy life for a second?”

“I didn’t even notice she was dead, Jared. What kind of person does that make me?”

“It makes you _human_ ,” Jared returned without missing a beat.

“It makes you the kind of person that falls in love with a cancer-sick child and spends hours with it, trying to give it whatever little happiness you can give even when you know it’s going to break your own heart in the process.”

“You sure about that?” Jensen forced out, voice breathy from tears as he huffed out a wet, humorless laugh. “You sure I wasn’t just trying to boost my own ego? Playing the good Samaritan?”

Jared sighed, picking up a stone from the ground and inspecting it quietly, brushing his fingers over the caked mud that had dried on its smooth surface.

It was disk-like, flat on both sides and just the right size for his too-large hands.

He looked at it like it was his death sentence before getting into a position to throw it across the lake’s smooth surface.

“You should have told me,” Jared said, low and quiet into the wintery air before he expertly skimmed the stone across the water, counting the times it bounced before it sank with a final splash.

“About Sandy,” he added unnecessarily and picked up another pebble from the ground, shooting it across the sunlit water surface and staring intently at the glittering ripples it caused.

Jensen just looked at him with shiny eyes, not offering up anything in return.

“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for us, Jensen, I really am. But sometimes you just gotta take a fucking backseat, you hear me? This life… you haven’t even seen half of it. You’ve seen us working on bikes and getting drunk and goofing off, but there’s a darker side to all of this. There’s a side of the gang - a side of _me_ that I’m not sure I want you to witness. And if shit goes down- I mean _really_ goes down- I need to be able to trust you to—“

“You seriously think you can't trust me?” Jensen grimaced, looking hurt. “After everything I’ve done for you?”

“I need to trust you to stay out of harm’s way, Jensen,” Jared continued softly, sending Jensen a stern look. “I need to know that when push comes to shove, you’ll sit back and let me handle things  _my_ way.”

“But—“

“Look, I know you’re fucking smart and you want to help us and you _did_. You’ve helped us out too many damn times to count and I’ll never stop being grateful for that. But when it comes to the gang, I’m the one to call the damn shots, you get that?”

When Jared finally looked at him, letting Jensen see the hard edge in his eyes- the deep, earth-shattering intensity that sparked bright beneath swirls of mahogany and green, Jensen felt his insides coil with emotion.

“Tell me that you understand,” Jared demanded, his gaze never wavering from Jensen’s.

Jensen swallowed, the cold still seeping further into his bones; into the core of his heart.

He nodded, blinking tears from his lashes.

“I understand."

The tension that had crackled in the air between them for the past few hours suddenly vanished, like somebody had pulled a plug and caused some kind of electric combustion and then Jared leaned forward, just far enough for Jensen to watch his pupils dilate as he reached out to cup Jensen’s jaw.

“What happened to the kid wasn’t your fault. You can’t blame yourself for enjoying life. Bad shit’s always gonna happen, one fucking way or another.”

Jared’s hand was so warm it sent waves of heat through Jensen’s entire body and for a moment Jensen was afraid if they stayed like this for much longer, their eyes locked in a heated gaze and their faces mere inches apart.

“You suck at pep talks, you know that?"

“Maybe you should shut me up, then,” Jared breathed out, the sunlight reflecting in his eyes causing them to sparkle.

Somehow it made it all seem unreal. Almost like Jensen was watching Jared from the other side of a mirror; like he wasn’t really here.

Jensen let out a sigh and leaned forward, bringing their mouths together.

It felt like a missing puzzle piece was slipping back into place; Jared’s arm sliding around his midriff to pull him closer, hands running up his arms to meet at the back of his head, weaving through the short-cropped hair and digging fingertips into his scalp.

Jensen whimpered, hands clutching at the back of Jared’s shirt, his biceps, pulling him in even more; head angling to the side as Jared’s tongue slowly parted his lips and dipped inside.

He tasted of stale cigarette smoke but Jensen couldn’t get enough of it. 

Long, languid minutes passed of them devouring each other’s mouths, ignoring the cold that seeped into their bones in favor of the warmth searing heat that connected their mouths.

Just as Jensen was about to get dizzy from lack of oxygen, the loud ringing of Jared’s cell phone made them break apart.

Jared pulled back with a sigh. "I should probably get that."

“Yeah, okay,” Jensen sagged in Jared’s hold, forehead coming down against Jared’s collarbone as the taller man fished his phone from his pockets.

He felt tired and there was a headache building behind his eyes, probably from all the crying he’d done.

But there was just something about being in Jared’s arms that made him feel whole and safe and comfortable in a way that nobody else had ever could.

“Yeah,” Jared answered the call with impatience in his tone. 

Jensen slid his hands under the threadbare fabric of Jared’s shirt, fingertips skimming over the tail end of his phoenix tattoo and tracing the delicate curves of black ink.

Jared reached down to capture his wrist and Jensen froze.

The flash of panic in the depth of Jared’s eyes caused Jensen’s insides to freeze with instant panic.

Something was wrong.

“Are you sure? I need you to be a hundred percent sure about shit like this, so fucking help me god—“

Anger, there was bristling anger in Jared’s voice.

A cold look of determination settled over Jared’s features and Jensen could feel the sudden chasm between them, even long before Jared slipped out from beneath his touch, putting a physical distance between their bodies.

“I’m on my way,” Jared pressed out, neck corded with tension. “Nobody goes anywhere until I fucking get there, you hear me? I fucking mean it, Chris. All of you stay fucking put.”

Jared barely waited for a response from the other line before he ended the call and squeezed his eyes shut, fingers curled so tight around his phone that his knuckles paled from lack of circulation.

Jensen’s heart was in his throat.

He didn’t dare to breathe or blink out of fear of what would happen.

Then Jared let out a cry of fury and whirled around to kick his boots so hard against the nearest tree that it caused Jensen to flinch back in shock. A few birds scurried away from the treetops in sheer panic and if Jensen had wings he’d have probably taken off as well out of dread for what was coming.

“Jay?” Jensen croaked out, voice shaking.

This couldn't be good. 

“They’ve got Jeff.”

 

 

“You can’t just leave me here,” Jensen protested loudly enough to turn some heads as they walked down the busy college pathway. “Do you seriously expect me to sit back and twirl my thumbs while you’re getting yourself killed?”

Jared didn’t even so much as glance at Jensen, his whole posture coiled tight with tension.

He was readying himself for a battle he was bound to lose and Jensen felt desperation claw at him; every fiber of his being protesting at the thought of Jared as the archon of some revenge-driven crusade.

“This isn’t up for discussion,” Jared said, his voice deathly calm. “You promised, remember?”

"Not this. I didn't sign up for _this_ ," Jensen protested and a group of girls nearby shot them curious looks from where they were gathered beneath a tree, eating lunch.

“Inside,” Jared growled, jerking his head towards the dorm rooms. Jensen let himself get dragged into the building, right up until they had reached the front door of Jensen’s apartment.

“Don’t do it,” Jensen’s tone took on a pleading edge, fingers reaching up to grab Jared’s shirt in a desperate attempt to keep him from leaving. 

He palmed the side of Jared’s face, brushing his thumb across the smooth skin there. “Jared, you don’t have to do this. Just call the police, let them take care of it.”

“I’d lose Jeff either way,” Jared sighed, reaching up to pull Jensen’s hand away from his face.

He tangled their fingers for a second, before taking a step back, closing himself off from the here and now, from _Jensen_ , for good.

“I want you to stay here, okay?” Jared cut him off. “Watch some TV, read a book, just don't leave the house by yourself. I’ll call you when all of this is over.”

“What if you don’t call?” Jensen fought to keep his voice steady. "What am I gonna do if—“

Jared grabbed the back of Jensen’s head and yanked him in for one final kiss.

Jensen immediately turned soft under him, melting against the older man's chest as every form of protest was sucked from his lungs.

When Jared eventually retreated, Jensen let out a soft sound of protest. His fingers slipped from the silk strands and Jensen’s vision blurred with tears. "Be safe."

Jared gave him a soft smile, swiping his thumb over Jensen’s bottom lip. “You too."

 

 

“You sure this is the right thing to do?” Chris took a greedy drag from his cigarette, unable to keep his fingers from shaking.

He tapped the bottom of his pack of smokes against his open palm, a nervous tick he’d acquired long before they’d met.

Jared exhaled slowly. “When are we ever doing the right thing?”

Chris cut him a sideways glance, looking worried and insecure.

“Lucian didn’t leave us with another choice,” Jared sighed. “We’ve watched this shit go on for way too fucking long.”

“You know there’s no turning back from what we’re about to do, right?” Chris asked face closed off as he stared off into the night.

The gang was still inside, getting ready for the showdown and Jared wasn’t sure his own heart was even still beating, he was so fucking nervous of failing them. Of getting them hurt. Of getting them _killed._

He knew that was what bothered Chris too- the thought of Katie or Steve or any of their other friends getting hurt in the process of what they were about to do- much more terrifying than any concern for their own wellbeing could ever be.

“Lucian made us listen to how his fucking goons took turns beating Jeff," Chris stomped his cigarette out and wiped a hand across his mouth. "Steve didn't want me to tell you, but I figured you should know."

Jared gritted his teeth, a cold fury settling low in his gut.

A rage so deep that it annihilated every other emotion, every other thought, except for the urge to see his enemies lying in a goddamn puddle of their own blood at his feet.

“I want this motherfucker dead.”

 

 

Jared had told him to go and read a fucking book.

To watch TV.

Like that would help to quench the welling panic inside his chest.

Like it would make him forget that Jared– the man he’d lost his stupid, frail, self-destructive heart to – was out there somewhere, fighting a losing battle and most likely getting himself shot in the process.

Jensen yanked the door to his room open and grabbed the wayward folder with Jared’s financial papers from his dresser.

“Woah, there, where's the rush?” Misha frowned at him from the doorway.

Danneel was hovering close by, looking just as concerned by Jensen’s behavior. “Are you okay?”

Jensen was, for once, thankful for his friends’ presence.

“Do me a favor and take some of these?” he held out about half the stack of documents to Misha and handed the rest to Danneel.

The worry lines on Misha’s forehead deepened. “What am I supposed to do with them?”

“Help me check them for anything weird.”

“Weird?” Misha repeated slowly, eyebrows climbing to his hairline. “Weird as in ‘my friend’s acting weird’ or—“

“There must be something interesting in them if Jeff went through the hassle of digging them up from his filing cabinet. I’m guessing some kind of tax fraud, maybe an understatement of liabilities or something… Whatever it is, I need to find out, alright?”

Danneel wandered over to the sofa, sitting down heavily on the cushions.

“You know that these are over a decade old?” she asked softly, her eyes already scanning the document in her hands, pupils flying back and forth as she ran the numbers in her head.

“Yeah, they’re from the year they opened up the garage. First business year, to be exact.”

“I don’t understand,” Misha started protesting, face growing serious. “Why are we doing this?”

“Just humor me, alright?”

Jensen grabbed his phone from the nightstand and called Tom on speed-dial.

It only rang twice before Tom picked up. _"Yeah?"_

“Tom, I need you to do me a favor. It’s important.”

There was no hesitation. _“_ _What do you need?”_

Jensen closed his eyes as a wave of gratitude swept through his body. Between the two of them, no favor had ever been too big to ask.

“I need some information on a guy called Jeffrey Dean Morgan.”

There was a pause on the other end. _“Information of what kind?”_

“Guy got into a tangle with the police a few years ago for a busted deal in El Paso. He was running an illegal gun trafficking ring, probably also trading narcotics and getting in trouble for some other stuff. I’m guessing arson, aggravated assault, illegal possession of firearms, something along the lines of that.”

 _“Along the lines of that?”_ Tom cursed under his breath, sounding pissed. _“Gee, is there anything else to add to the list? Murder, maybe? Who the fuck is that guy, Jensen?”_

“Look, can you just check his records, please?” Jensen pinched the bridge of his nose. 

They’d hacked into the court system before, just to see if they could.

Back when they were in their first semester Jensen had jokingly said to Tom that it’d be cool to find out about the dirty little secrets hidden in their judicial system, to somehow gain control of records about gun control, child custody, and voting.

It had been a game for them. Tampering with their minds, seeing how far their own smarts could take them. They’d been careful and smart about it, well aware of the potential consequences.

This time, the stakes would be even higher.

 _“And do what with them?”_ Tom asked, already sensing that there was more to it than just hacking into the guy’s criminal records.

“I want you to expunge his files.”

It was pretty simple once you thought about it. 

Jared said he couldn't get the police involved because of their criminal records, so Jensen was going to get rid of Jeff's charges until this whole mess was over. Jeff would be saved by an FBI squad or whatever and nobody would get hurt- or you know, imprisoned.

_"Jensen, do you know what you’re asking of me, here? If anyone ever finds out—“_

“I’ll take full blame," Jensen promised and bit his lower lip to keep it from shaking. “Listen, I know what I’m asking is a lot. But I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't important."

Tom snorted at the massive understatement.

_“I suppose this is somehow related to Jared?”_

The disdain in Tom’s voice was undeniable.

Jensen closed his eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

_“Jensen—“_

“I love him, Tommy.”

Danneel’s eyes grew wide and misty from where she watched him from across the room and even Misha seemed, for once, at a loss of words.

“I don’t know how it happened or when,” Jensen continued softly. “But no matter how hard I’m trying to tell myself that it won’t work out- that we're too different- it doesn’t change the way I feel about him."

Jensen could hear the exact moment when Tom caved in, a soft, barely audible sound of defeat from the other end of the line.

_“I'll do what I can."_

Jensen closed his eyes, relief hitting him so heavy, it made him dizzy. “Thank you.”

 

 

The flames had no culture, no pity, no guilt or regret or hesitation to them.

They simply consumed.

Their only purpose was tearing things apart and turning them into ash.

The fire burnt hot, violent and destructive, with no care of what was left behind.

Jared stared into the raging flames that licked away at the Reaper’s clubhouse and it wasn’t fire he saw, but _justice_.

He recalled his mother’s screams on the night he became an orphan- recalled the way she’d wrapped her arms around him in a desperate attempt to protect him from the hail of bullets and how her warm blood had sprayed his skin shortly after.

He remembered the sound she made- somewhere deep in her throat, and the dull _thud_ of her lifeless body hitting the ground.

They had destroyed him irreparably that night with a single well-aimed bullet to the center of his mother’s forehead. 

They’d taken everything from him; his trust, his innocence and replaced it all with a gaping, black void.

So when Jared had lit up his zippo and dropped it to the gasoline-soaked ground, he had told himself that they had it coming, that they _deserved_  it.

That they’d paid for it in full.

Yeah, there was no guilt or regret in what Jared was doing.

Only the bone-deep satisfaction of a man who was craving revenge like a drowning man craved air to breathe.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here,” Steve grabbed Jared by the shirt and dragged him back towards the bikes, cutting a nervous glance out when the wailing sound of approaching sirens grew louder in the distance.

This was only the beginning. 

What came next, would be something not even the flames could burn away.

 

 

Misha’s gaze was absent as he calculated the numbers in front of him.

Then his frown suddenly deepened, his gaze coming to rest on an underlined number at the bottom of the balance sheet.

“Found something?” Jensen immediately picked up on the other man’s tension.

“It doesn’t add up.”

“What do you mean?” Jensen edged closer and Misha turned the paper around to face him.

“It’s a balance sheet so all of these numbers should equal the grand total at the bottom, but the numbers don’t add up.”

“What do you mean _'off’_? The totals are the same on both sides."

Misha shook his head. “Yeah, but only at first glance. I mean look at the bank loan, for instance, that’s 50.000 dollars’ worth of debt for business funding. You know how much it takes to strike a deal like that?”

Jensen shrugged. “Jeff can be pretty convincing if he wants to be.”

“Yeah, but even if he did manage to secure a loan of 50 grand, he’d still be paying off the debt to this day. I mean think about it, small business loans aren’t amortizing, but they usually carry a fixed-fee structure. Let’s say you carry a 60-month repayment term and your total fees and interest…”

Misha washed a hand over his face. “I mean it’s hard for me to make assumptions based on a couple of statements, but it seems to me like someone messed with these numbers. Like the owner’s equity seems too high and the revenues look like they’re recording future expected sales, which means they’re—“

“Overstated,” Jensen muttered to himself like something was suddenly dawning on him.

A thoughtful look settled on his features and Jensen grabbed his jacket from the sofa.

“Where are you going?” Danneel piped up from where she was sprawled out on the sofa, a calculator and a stack of paper in her lap.

“I’ll take a look at some of the old statements in Jared's office. Try to look for some kind of pattern. If Jeffrey was overstating sales he must've been doing it for a while."

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Misha protested. “You shouldn’t be out there by yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jensen grabbed his keys and slipped out the door before either of them got a chance to protest. “Just call me if anything comes up, alright?”

 

 

The garage was empty when Jensen arrived.

He opened it with the spare key that was hidden in one of the broken flower pots in the backyard and slipped inside, turning on the flickering neon lights.

Jensen dropped his phone and the car keys on a nearby work bench, letting the familiar scent of motor oil and gasoline wash through him as he made a straight line for Jared’s office.

He made it about halfway across the room when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eyes, causing his heart to skip a beat. 

It took a second for him to work past the initial sense of panic, but then his body relaxed and his shoulders slumped when he recognized the dark navy cap and marine blue jacket.

“Ty, thank god, it’s you. For a second I thought—“

“You know it’s dangerous for you to be out here all by yourself in the middle of the night,” Ty gave back in a dark voice, stepping fully inside and pulling the door closed behind him.  “All kinds of things could happen to a guy like you in a shady place like this.”

Jensen frowned at the cryptic words, an uneasy feeling sinking into the bottom of his guts.

“Where’s Jared?” he asked, hoping against hope that Ty would know.

"Jared, Jared, Jared," The older man chuckled darkly, taking another step forward. “You know in all the years I spent by the guy’s side, I never understood peoples’ fascination with him.”

Jensen’s eyes flickered down to Ty’s leg, the one that had supposedly landed him in the hospital after the brawl at the bar, and his heart stopped, all blood suddenly draining from his face.

There was nothing.

No limp, no bandages or Band-Aids; not even a fucking crutch to rest his weight on.

Ty had lied to them about his injury.

If he had really strained his ligament during the fight in the bar like he claimed he had, he sure as hell wouldn't be standing right now.

Realization was like a slow moving train wreck.

Ty must have sold them out.

Jensen instinctively took another step back, nearly tripping over his own feet in his urge to get away.

“You look a bit spooked there, boy,” Ty observed and it wasn’t until he finally stopped in his tracks that Jensen noticed his mistake, shoulder bumping against the cool walls of the garage.

He’d been too busy backing off from Ty to realize that he’d let himself get cornered.

Ty grabbed Jensen by the hem of his shirt and pressed him back against the wall, a meaty hand shooting up to Jensen’s throat. "What's the matter? You're not afraid of me are you?"

“Let me go,” Jensen demanded, even as a creeping panic ignited in his chest at the way Ty’s fingers restricted his airways, loose enough to give him room to breathe, and yet undoubtedly _threatening_.

His fingers instinctively shot up to claw at Ty’s hands, but the older man was too strong and Jensen’s back didn’t budge an inch.

He was trapped.

“I said let me go,” he repeated, more forcefully, breath growing ragged as his heartbeat kicked up with an involuntary surge of panic. "Get your fucking hands off of me."

The corner of Ty’s mouth curled. 

Just a little. Just enough to confirm his dark intentions.

“All you ever wanted was Jared’s attention,” Ty’s hand moved down Jensen’s tones torso, feeling the slight quiver that shook the younger man’s body at the intimate gesture. "His _touch_."

It made his skin crawl with disgust, sending shivers down my spine. “So much faith in a flawed man, so much _love_.”

Ty’s fingers trailed down to the waistband of his jeans, lingering there.

He got no further than that.

Jensen’s foot slammed against his exposed shin and Ty let go of Jensen’s throat with a pained grunt, momentarily stunned from the unexpected attack.

Jensen moved fast; his hands darting out to grab the next best thing from a nearby counter- which turned out to be a rusty wrench.

His heart was hammering wildly in his chest as he swung the wrench down, right between Ty’s legs.

The burly man folded in half with a high-pitched howl of agony and Jensen slammed his knee up into his guts, striking him hard and sending him tumbling to the ground.

“Son of a fucking bitch!” Ty growled out furiously, voice strained with pain as he struggled to his knees. 

Jensen took off into the direction of the exit but had barely made it halfway across the room when he felt strong hands wrap around his ankles and they both toppled to the floor with a violent thud.   
  
“I will teach you a lesson you’ll never forget, you dirty little slut,” Ty hissed, yanking Jensen’s head up roughly by the hair and slamming it back down against the dirty concrete.

Stars exploded behind Jensen’s eyes and he hit the floor, dizzy with pain and he panted, trying to crawl away. 

A sharp pain streaked through his head and then Ty was right in front of him- on top of him- a dark, twisted blur in Jensen’s concussed vision.

“Thought you were being real smart, huh, sneaking in here in the middle of the night?” Ty snarled, spittle flying from his mouth as he pinned Jensen to the floor with his body weight. “What were you trying to do, huh? Find your boyfriend? Warn him?”

Jensen bucked up from the floor, ignoring the renewed surge of pain flaring through his brain as he tried to wrench his arms free from where Ty restrained them.

“How long have you been double-crossing them, you fucking bastard?” he growled, struggling against the hands that held him down, trying to remember what Jared had taught him- trying to find a moment of weakness in the man’s grasp to exploit.

“How often have you talked to them, laughed with them, pretended to be their _friend_ , only to stab them in the fucking back the next second?"

"Too many times to count," Ty was grinning down at him, yellow teeth bared in malicious glee and Jensen couldn't remember ever having wanted to punch someone in the face as much as he did in that moment.

"You  _disgust_ me,” he spat a glob of blood-flecked saliva into the other man’s face.

His aim was a bit off, but he still managed to splatter Ty’s shoulder and send beads of spittle flying into his hair.

Ty backhanded him hard across the face; the resounding crack echoing through the garage as he sent Jensen crumpling to the dirty floor with a gasp.

Jensen’s ears were ringing from the blow and the coppery taste of blood exploded on his tongue.

“This is how it’s gonna go,” Ty hissed, grabbing a fistful of Jensen’s hair and roughly turning his head to the side, eliciting a pained gasp from the younger man.

Ty yanked his gun from his waistband and Jensen's heart thudded to a sudden halt in his chest when he felt the cool press of a barrel against his temple.

“You can be a good boy and come with me willingly _or_...” Ty tapped the barrel of his gun against Jensen’s forehead, awakening the dull throb of his concussion and causing him to shiver. “I drag your unconscious body out of here, beaten and bloody.”

Judging from the dark glimmer in Ty's eyes, it was obvious which of the two option he preferred.

Jensen weighed his options.

There was no way he was going to beat Ty in close combat; the older man was simply too strong.

Unbidden, Jared's words from the night before came to Jensen's mind.

_So what’s the point in this, if I don’t have the sliver of a chance?_

_The point is to _survive.__ _The point is to fend someone off until you can get away or call help._

If he left with Ty willingly, it would give him a chance to escape or at least to fight Ty off long enough for one of the other gang members to return to the garage.

Ty’s fingers tightened in his hair, digging painfully into his scalp. “Lucian only told me to bring you alive. But that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun with you before we go. It would be a poor fucking choice to force my hand, don’t you think, _pretty boy_?”

Jensen's eyes were filled to the brim with contempt as he lifted them up to meet Ty's threatening glower.

His breathing was heavy, blood trickling down his chin and coating his teeth as he bared them in defiance. "Screw you, you spineless piece of shit."

It was the wrong thing to say.

Ty’s arm flashed in his periphery, too quickly for him to react as the butt of the gun connected with his temple, hard _.  
_

Then the world around him went black.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has emotionally destroyed me. It was incredibly hard to write and I am still not completely satisfied with how it turned out. At the rate I was going, I would probably still be editing it half a year from now, so I settled with this version. I seriously hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless! As always, a huge thanks goes out to my beta TheBoys. Xoxo


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for homophobic content, graphic descriptions of violence, as well as graphic descriptions of physical and psychological torture.

** **

** **

 

**Open Road  
Chapter 17**

Waking up was a slow process.

Jensen became aware of his surroundings in stages.

One, he woke up with the kind of headache he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy and two, his mouth tasted like something had curled up in it and died, then rotted away for several weeks.

He gagged on the rancid air that filled his lungs, tongue prodding sluggishly against the foul-tasting wad of fabric that had been stuffed into his mouth.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he waited for the wave of nausea to subside, knowing full and well how fatal it would be to get sick with something blocking his airways.

He tried to move his arms and found them cuffed behind his back; cold metal biting into his wrists.

His ankles weren’t much better off, secured together with zip ties and leaving him defenseless.

Jensen’s heart rate sped up as the sickening extent of his predicament crashed down upon him.

You really didn’t know the true meaning of ‘Where did it all go so wrong?’ until you woke up tied to a metal chair with a dirty rag shoved down your throat.

This was the kind of shit you usually only saw in movies.

And wasn’t it ironic how you always knew better then; how you joked with friends about ‘why would they split up with a killer on the loose?’ and ‘how on earth is he still alive after that explosion?’, but when it was your own ass on the line- your life hanging in the balance, everything suddenly just stopped and rationality took a none-too-graceful leap out the window.

Jensen’s brain stopped dead; invisible fingers piercing holes into his lungs.

He felt like a deluge of ice water surrounded his limbs, creeping higher and higher until it passed his mouth and nose, threatening to drown him whole.

_I’m going to die… I’m going to die in some dirty, run-down warehouse at the age of twenty-one._

_I’ll never get to make things right with my family._

“—nsen.”

_Never get to see my friends again._

“—ensen. Look at me!”

_Never look into Jared’s eyes again._

_Never feel the gentle scrape of his scruff against my cheek._

_The soft press of his calloused lips against my own._

“Damnit, Jensen. Snap out of it!”

The words sounded far away and muffled like somebody was talking with his head dipped under water.

It took a moment for Jensen to register the voice over the frantic puffs of his own breath, to get his own fear back under control and blink the tears from his blurred and distorted vision.

“That’s it, take it easy,” the raspy voice encouraged and Jensen trained his unfocused gaze to his left where Jeffrey was strapped to a chair, mirroring his own position. “You back with me yet, kid?”

If anything, Jeffrey’s condition was only adding to Jensen’s panic.

He trailed his eyes over the countless cuts and bruises on the older man’s face.

Clotted blood was covering Jeff’s chin and lips; his left eye was swollen shut to a point where his features were barely recognizable.

Jensen’s fear must have shown because, despite the lousy condition he was in, Jeff managed to give Jensen a hopeful look, split lip quirking into a wry smile.

“Just try to calm down, alright? You’re their best bargaining chip now. Pretty sure they won’t kill you unless you do something massively stupid.”

So he was only 99% screwed, then.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Jensen forced himself to take a couple of measured- albeit shuddering- breaths through the nose, trying to concentrate on the sound and feel of oxygen filling his lungs.

_Alright. Hostage situation – what the fuck do you do?_

_Think, Jensen, think, goddamnit._

It wasn’t exactly like Jensen had ever planned on getting kidnapped, but he wasn’t a _total_ freak.

He watched TV.

And one of the first things people always did when they were kidnapped was scanning their surroundings for potential vantage spots, committing every feature to memory.

He could do that.

As long as he had something to focus on, something to distract him from the frustratingly low survival rate of victims involved in kidnappings, he would be _golden_.

Jensen took a cursory glance around the dimly lit room, trying to observe the shady warehouse they were in.

The place had a concrete floor and window-less walls; a heavy metal door marking the room’s only exit.

A single flickering light bulb was extended from the ceiling above Jensen’s head and a trail of red stains coated the floor in front of him that looked a hell of a lot like blood. (Jeff’s, maybe?)

Jensen sat there for a couple of seconds, trying to take in random details like the furniture surrounding him, counting how many steps it would take for him to get to the exit, checking to see if there were any sharp objects in his vicinity that could be used as a weapon…

The door was made of stainless steel with a single deadbolt lock that could probably be kicked with a bit of a start-up.

The room was approximately thirty by sixty with a ceiling that was covered with cobwebs and sawdust.

The crashing of waves could be heard through the threadbare walls and the thin gaps between the wooden floorboards, which meant they were near the harbor.

Industrial area.

No civilians.

No cars.

Calling for help would be absolutely useless.

Jensen’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt when the door to the warehouse was opened with a rusty screech, intensifying the throbbing in his temples.

A guy in his fifties stepped in, cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips as he pulled black leather gloves over his bony fingers.

The light bulb started flickering, almost as if disturbed by the newcomer’s entrance and Jensen held his breath as he watched the man readjust his greasy, silver-streaked hair into a ponytail.

Guy was wearing a black leather jacket with studded shoulder pads and there was an air of arrogance to his persona- an undeniable authority radiating off of him that practically screamed ‘leader’.

Not sparing either of them a glance, he pulled a zippo from his jeans and lit his cigarette up, taking a deep inhale.

Seconds ticked by in silence, not comfortable silence, but the kind that meant something really big was about to happen.

Jensen swallowed.

The guy grabbed the backrest of a rusty metal chair and approached him slowly, dragging the chair behind him as its hind legs screeched against the floor.

The sound of the protesting metal speared through Jensen’s skull like a screwdriver and he winced, hands flexing uselessly against the cool metal that kept him restrained.

_Fucking concussion._

He stopped about two feet from Jensen and looked him dead in the eyes.

There was a jagged scar running squarely across the guy's face and coupled with the dangerous little twist of his lips, Jensen’s heartbeat skipped a beat in fear.

“Look who’s finally awake.”

The guy’s lips tugged up into a devilish little grin, twirls of smoke slowly curling from the corners of his mouth and clouding his face into some kind of gray halo.

He leaned in, bringing their faces close enough for him to feel the irregularity of Jensen’s breathing, for him to see the way Jensen’s pupils widened.

Taking a particularly long drag of his cigarette, he held the glowing tip dangerously close to Jensen’s face, close enough for the younger man to feel every goddamn bit of its 750 degrees.

Tears gathered in Jensen’s eyes as the orange embers of the burning tip reflected in them.

He tried to turn his head to the side, but the man’s hand was right there, holding him in place.

His gloved hand curled around Jensen’s chin, fingers digging painfully into the soft skin while his cheek came to rest against the side of Jensen’s face, mouth brushing against the shell of his ear.

“It’s impolite to avert your gaze if someone’s talking to you.”

The guy- Scarface- leaned back just far enough to take another drag of his cigarette and Jensen didn’t dare to breathe, didn’t even dare to blink as his lungs rebelled in protest and his mind screamed at him to do something- _anything_ to get that fucking thing away from his eyes. He wrapped his chapped lips around the filter and hollowed his cheeks out, then let out a whooshing breath, blowing a cloud of smoke directly into Jensen’s face.

Jensen grimaced, coughs muffled by the gag in his mouth while that fucker chuckled, taking sadistic pleasure from the way Jensen struggled in his grasp.

“Guess introductions are long overdue.”

Scarface turned the chair around and sat down backward on it, so his chest leaned against the backing of the metal, legs spread on either side of the seat.

He pulled a Glock from the back of his waistband and whatever short-lived sense of relief Jensen had felt at not getting a cigarette stabbed out anywhere on his face disappeared the second he felt cold steel press against his temple.

_No. No. Please… god, please don’t._

Jensen shivered, breath hitching in his throat.

He clenched his eyes shut, trying to keep his mind blank- trying to block out reality, but deep inside he knew there would be no hiding from what was about to happen.

“Look at me,” the guy commanded, voice threateningly low.

His fingers are perfectly still against the trigger, the gun’s muzzle frozen against his skin.

Jensen’s ears were ringing with so much noise- the sound of his own frantic breathing- of the raging headache wreaking havoc on his mind, of the blood rushing to his ears, the threat of imminent death against his forehead and the pleading voice in the back of his mind screaming at him to just do what he is being told- to _just listen_.

Slowly, oh so slowly, he lifted his eyes, gathering every last ounce of bravery he possessed and glaring up at his captor in defiance.

“Do you know who I am?”

Jensen nodded.

It wasn’t too hard to put one and one together.

Judging from the guy’s demeanor as well as his age, which was definitely more Jeffrey’s generation than his own, Jensen thought it was safe to say they were dealing with the gang leader.

Lucian. That’s what Jared used to refer to him as.

“Yeah, figured you would,” Lucian brushed his gloved fingers over Jensen’s pale cheek.

“So you’re the chosen one, huh? Jared’s pretty little trophy wife? His ball and chains?”

He leaned in once again; his dry lips pressed mercilessly against the shell of Jensen’s ear, hot breath tickling against sensitive skin.

“His bottom bitch.”

Jensen’s nostrils flared at the words.

His jaw is clamped down so tight on the rag, the muscle in his cheeks pinched with tension.

He flung his head from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the gag from his mouth, chest heaving angrily when it became clear that the cloth wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“Ahh… so much fire,” Lucian chuckled, digging the barrel of his gun more forcefully into Jensen’s forehead, almost as if to remind him of who was in charge here. “No fan of that little accessory we got you? Ty told me that you were a feisty one, spitting into peoples’ faces and all, so I took some precautions.”

A soft snort from beside them had both their heads turning towards Jeff.

“You sure you didn’t just do it so you could listen to your own fucking voice?” he rasped out and then coughed up a bloody glob of phlegm. He spat it to the ground, a few thin lines of spittle clinging stubbornly to his lips and chin. “God knows you’re fucking in love with it.”

Lucian straightened up and removed the gun from Jensen’s head, which, in hindsight, was probably what Jeff had been trying to achieve.

The blow that followed really shouldn’t have come to a surprise, but it really, really did.

Jensen' jaw exploded in pain and he found himself reeling backward, chair nearly tipping from the force of the punch.

His head snapped to the side so fast it gave him whiplash and he yanked on the cuffs in an instinctive attempt to bring his arms around.

_Holy mother of—_

Jensen’s head was spinning and it took him a moment to lift it back up again from where he was nearly folded in half, greedily sucking in air through his nose as he tried to breathe through the onslaught of pain. 

“Leave him alone!” Jeff let out a vicious growl, rocking his own chair so hard it nearly fell over.

“There’s a new rule,” Lucian grabbed a fistful of Jensen’s hair and cruelly twisted his head upwards.

A muffled grunt was ripped from Jensen’s lips, eyes watering from the strain.

“Every time you do or say something I don’t appreciate, Jared’s lover boy will pay the prize.”

Jeff shot him a glower that could freeze fire.

But he obediently clamped his mouth shut.

“Now for you,” Lucian ripped the duct tape off of Jensen’s lips with a sharp jolt and then proceeded to pull the dirty rag from his mouth with a tug. “What do you say we have a little chat?”

Jensen gasped at the pain that shot through his lips and gingerly moved his jaw around to get feeling back into it. He shifted it back and forth with a wince, before lifting his eyes from the ground.

“First things first,” Lucian’s eyes took on a dark glimmer. “What’s your name?”

Jensen yanked his head out of the older man’s hands with a murderous scowl.

He licked his cracked lips and cleared his throat, tasting blood on his tongue.

“I'd tell you but I don't like being labeled.”

This time, Jensen saw the blow coming from miles away, had provoked it, even, but that didn’t help to dissipate the pain.

Lucian’s fist caught him in the jaw, stars exploding up into Jensen’s skull and for a moment the world turned into a fuzzy haze.

The force of the blow instantly knocked the wind out of him.

Lucian flexed his hand a couple of times and Jensen took the time to gather his bearings, panting hard through his nose and trying to push the pain into the deepest corner of his mind.

“Wanna run that by me again?” he said, deathly calm and Jensen had trouble understanding him over the white noise of his own blood rushing to his ears.

“Je-Jerry…” Jensen panted. “Jerry Popper. It’s my s-stripper name—“

The punch came quicker, this time, aimed at the center of his sternum.

Jensen couldn’t quite help the pained gasp that escaped his throat, white lightning bolts of agony shooting through his chest and up along the curve of his spine.

It was becoming harder to breathe and Jensen couldn’t be sure if some of his ribs had been cracked or broken from the latest attack.

Either way, it fucking _hurt_.

No anatomy class ever prepared you for this shit.

“Jensen! His name’s Jensen, you goddamn asshole!” Jeff beckoned from the side, trying to intervene, but Lucian barely spared him a glance.

“You know, _Jensen,_ for someone with an IQ of 167 you seem pretty fucking dense to me.”

“Huh,” Jensen was still left winded- still panting, every labored breath pure agony on his burning lungs.

His head was spinning like he’d gone one too many times on a fucking merry-go-round and he was blinking tears of agony from his eyes as his stomach muscles cramped  and spasmed.

“So you know my IQ but you what- forgot to ask your goons for my fucking name?” Jensen huffed out an incredulous laugh. “That the standard procedure for kidnappings or am I getting the special treatment?”

“You’re right,” Lucian’s eyes flashed and a dark look settled on his features. “We should probably skip the small talk and get straight down to business.”

He pursed his lips and trailed the mouth of his gun down along the side of Jensen’s neck, causing him to shudder.

“I know your name, kid. I know where you live, where your little friends live. I even know all about your prissy little family in Richardson and where sweet lil’ Kenzie goes to school.”

Jensen’s eyes widened, heart skipping a beat.

“Cute girl,” Lucian smirked, realizing he’d hit a nerve. “The good looks must run in the family.”

Rage welled inside Jensen, overwhelming all of his senses, darkening his every thought.

His breathing came hard and ragged as he clenched his fingers into fists and bit his teeth together.

“I swear to god if you’ve touched her—“

“What?” Lucian chuckled darkly. “What are you and god going to do to me, boy?”

Jensen was fuming.

It was hard for him to think past the raging anger that burned through his veins at the thought that this bastard had stalked his family- his _sister_ \- while she hadn’t even known it was happening.

Whatever fear he’d felt for his own life was utterly and completely overshadowed by a bone-deep protective instinct that had been instilled in him pretty much from the day Mackenzie had been born.

Didn’t matter that they hadn’t seen each other in a while or that they hadn’t talked in ages.

The fact that she was family and that Jensen would die for her- for any of them- would never change.

Funny that it took a fucking gun to the head to realize that.

“She’s just a goddamn kid. She’s got nothing to do with any of this!”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got no interest in your sister,” Lucian assured with a soft snort. “She’s a bit too young for my taste. You on the other hand…“

Lucian’s eyes darkened as he trailed his palm suggestively down the younger man’s chest.

“You’re a real jackpot, aren’t you? Pretty face, athletic body, and I guess I don’t have to mention how much you’ve lucked out in the brain department.”

His palm came to halt over Jensen’s belly, fingers hovering threateningly over the center of his stomach and everything inside of Jensen protested at the touch, muscle coiled tight with revulsion.

“And the best thing about you?” Lucian gave Jensen a wicked grin. “If I let my men have a go at that tight little ass of yours, chances are they’ll knock you up in the process.”

Jensen’s stomach turned. He paled, all the color draining from his face in one go.

“What the fuck are you saying?” Jeff piped up from the side.

“Oh, you didn’t know, did you?” Lucian smirked over at Jeff. “Wonderboy, here, is a carrier.”

Jensen closed his eyes, pressing his lips together.

“Wasn’t that also the reason why your parents kicked you out?” Lucian leaned in, lips hovering right above Jensen’s face. “Why they have all but erased you from their lives- from their memories?”

The awful words managed to claw their way deeper and deeper into Jensen’s brain, right to the inner core of his broken heart, hitting home with a ferocity that took his breath away.

“Accepting that your son is some kind of prodigy student– that’s one thing. But I’d imagine mommy and daddy weren’t too happy to find out that their baby boy was sucking the pastor’s dick in the confessional.”

Jensen blinked, a first tear escaping at the cruel words, but Lucian wasn’t finished with him— instead, it seemed that his anguish only seemed to spur the other man on.

“And as if the fact that you were gay in a conservative Christian community wasn’t bad enough, you had to be one of these disgusting abominations that would flaunt a baby belly around, unable to hide their life of sin from the outside world… a _disgrace_ to the Ackles name.”

Jensen squeezed his eyes shut harder to block the words out but it was useless.

The tears just kept falling, streaming incessantly down his ashen cheeks.

“You motherfucking piece of shit,” Jeff growled out from beside them, eyes glinting threateningly over at Lucian from where he was strapped down to the chair next to Jensen. “Don’t fucking listen to him, Jensen. He’s just trying to mess with you.”

“Aw, but it’s the truth, isn’t it?” Lucian drawled out cruelly, wiping at Jensen’s tear-streaked cheeks with the rough leather on his fingertips.

Jensen's eyelashes fluttered open. He lifted his blurry gaze to look up at his tormentor and shifted his jaw in determination.

A cold look overtook his features and his eyes hardened imperceptibly.

If he was going to die at the hands of this sadistic asshole in some rundown warehouse, he wasn’t going down without a fight.

Maybe it wasn’t the smart choice to go with, but Jensen would prefer to go out with his dignity intact if he had a choice in the matter.

“Fine,” Jensen let out a slow breath, proud of the way his voice barely wavered despite the hurt bleeding through. “You wanna take a stroll down fucking memory lane, trade some stories? How about I tell you one of my own?”

_You picked the wrong fucking guy to play your psycho warfare games with._

Lucian almost seemed amused by the threat. “I’m all ears.”

Jensen’s brain was spinning with a thousand different thoughts and memories, broken pieces and tidbits of information about the Reapers he’d stored away over the past month suddenly resurfacing from the depths of his mind and realigning in his head.

The heist in El Paso.

Chad’s accident.

Jared’s mom.

Jensen laid every little insignificant detail he’d stored away about the two rivaling biker gangs and their past out in his head and took a measured inhale, knowing what he had to do.

“Ten years ago you were the undisputed boss in town, trading guns and drugs and god knows what else over the Mexican border. There were rivalries, troubles with the suppliers. It probably didn’t take long before you started dropping bodies. After all, what’s a few casualties added to the list?”

Lucian shrugged and Jensen had never wanted to see anybody dead as much as this fucking bastard.

“Let me guess,” Jensen’s eyes flickered over to Jeff, whose whole expression was like a huge flashing neon sign of _‘what the fuck do you think you’re doing?’_. “Everything was all fine and dandy until Jeff became a member of your gang and started questioning your decisions- or  should I say your authority?”

Jensen’s voice took on more strength as he soaked in Lucian’s reaction, the way his features hardened and his eyes narrowed with murderous intent. “Maybe you got your hands a little too dirty, got too many civilians involved. Too many innocents killed. The police got suspicious and whatever baksheesh you slipped them suddenly wasn’t enough for them to keep turning the other way whenever you caused trouble in town.”

Jensen paused, forcefully ignoring the way his heart hammered wildly in his chest.

“After the drug heist got busted in El Paso, Jeff went rogue. He started up his own gang called the Black Legion and took half of your men along with him. But that’s not enough, he takes something else.”

There was a beat of silence.

Jensen looked up at Lucian with every bit of hatred he could muster.

“Must have been a real shock to your system, finding out that Jeff was running off with your girl, stealing her right from under your nose, huh? Maybe somebody sprung the news to you- wouldn’t be a shocker with that backstabbing piece of shit on your team. Or maybe you caught them red-handed, fucking each other languidly across your favorite linen sheet. ”

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” Lucian growled, the warning clear in his tone.

“You could live with the fact that Jeff had started a gang of his own, sure, you weren’t happy about it, but you’d come to accept it,” Jensen continued. “But losing half of your gang members _and_ your girl to Jeff was unacceptable. So you decided to get rid of her.”

“I SAID SHUT UP!” Lucian snapped and pulled his gun back out of its holster in one swift movement.

He cocked the hammer back with a dull click and Jensen flinched, heart jackhammering painfully against his ribcage.

Jensen swallowed hard as he stared up the glinting barrel of Lucian’s gun.

“If you couldn’t have her, nobody could,” he forced himself to go on and then winced when Lucian pressed the barrel harder into his skin, fingers tightening on the trigger as his breath came out in angry little puffs of hot air against his sweaty skin.

“You killed her, didn’t you? You made it look like an accident, got her killed in the crossfire of some insignificant shooting because you couldn’t bear the fact that she chose Jeff over you.”

Lucian’s expression turned into a dark grimace, eyes practically black with anger.

He went deathly still and something in his features shifted noticeably.

“Listen up, you worthless _maggot_ ,” Lucian’s voice hissed against his ear, sharp and unexpected and it wasn’t until then that Jensen realized the older man had moved closer, gloved fingers digging painfully into his blood-smeared cheeks.

“The only reason why I haven’t splattered Jeff’s face with your brains yet is because I want Jared to have a fucking front row seat when it happens. But in the meanwhile—“ Lucian shook his head with a gleeful smile on his face. “I’m going to make you wish you’d never been born.”

“Jensen, shut your goddamn mouth, you hear?” Jeff warned sharply from the side, a note of panic causing his words to waver. “Just do what he’s telling you!”

Jensen shivered, feeling cold all over.

If anything, Lucian’s threat had only strengthened his resolve to piss that bastard off- to make him snap.

Jensen’s chances of getting out of this place alive were bad… _real_ bad.

Even if he did whatever Lucian asked of him, the Reapers’ endgame was to lure Jared in with Jensen as bait and ultimately to kill him.

And even if Jensen was downright terrified, barely hearing his own spiteful words over the panicked sound of his breathing- the static white noise of blood whooshing through his entire body- the frantic _thudthudthud_ of his heartbeat- he still knew, with absolute certainty, that he wouldn’t survive the loss of Jared.

The guilt and devastation of Jared getting killed in an attempt to save him would kill Jensen as surely as a bullet to the head would and that he couldn’t let that happen.

 _Stay safe._ That was the last thing Jared had said to him before they parted ways.

_I’m sorry, Jay._

“Go to hell,” Jensen whispered and lifted his chin to hold his tormentor’s gaze.

The corner of Lucian’s lips curled. “You first.”

He pulled the trigger.

 

 

“Danneel, would you calm down, please?”

“Calm down?” she repeated incredulously, voice shaking with undisguised panic.

She was pacing the length of the living room like a caged tiger, back and forth, over and over, but her frustration and restlessness only seemed to grow further with each second that passed.

“He’s been gone for three hours and he won’t pick up his phone! What’s there to be calm about?”

Her mind was going in a million different directions all at once, her heart lodged in her throat as she went through various horror scenarios in her head.

Jensen in a car crash.

Jensen lying beaten up and barely breathing on the hard pavement of some dark alleyway.

Jensen with a bullet hole between the eyes; gaze empty and void of life.

She clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to fight off a bout of sickness.

“Oh c’mon,” Misha noticed her agitation and sighed. “You know how Jensen gets when he’s onto something. He’s probably still in Jared’s office, trying to find whatever the hell he was looking for."

“We should call Jared,” Danneel scrambled to find her phone, digging through dog-eared papers and pillows on the couch.

“Woah, hold on a second,” Misha held up a palm, starting to sound unnerved himself. 

“I mean, first of all, do you even have the guy’s number? And secondly- what are we going to tell him? ‘Hey dude, we don’t know you, but your boyfriend just broke into your office and now he isn’t answering our calls?’”

“God, this is a nightmare,” Danneel’s face crumbled at that and she slumped against the cushions, eyes filling with tears as she reached up to bury his face in her hands. “We should have never let him go by himself. What if something happened to him, I mean, what if he’s—“

“No,” Misha cut her off with a stern shake of his head. “The second you allow yourself to start thinking that way is the second you give up on him, you hear me?”

Danneel nodded her head, visibly fighting to rein her composure.

“Alright. You’re right… what do we do?”

“Look up the address of the shop,” Misha ordered as he grabbed Tom’s car keys from the nightstand. “I say we head over there right now and check on him.”

“And if he isn’t there?”

“Then we’ll activate the GPS on his phone. Track him down another way.”

There was a banging noise.

Coming from inside the clubhouse.

Jared had swung himself on his Harley, ready to get the hell out of dodge when he heard it. 

It was a distinctive sound, barely audible over the howl of approaching sirens and the crackle of the fire as it ate its way through the foundations of the desolate building, burning it to the ground.

Everything around Jared seemed to grow louder as the chaos in his mind raged on; the roar of Chris’ bike as he started the engine, the increased thundering of his own pulse and that insistent rattle of the door as someone slammed against it from the inside.

A scream of terror-stricken fear melded with the other noise, creating a cacophony so loud and disturbing that it managed to break through the fury that drowned out all logical thought in Jared’s mind.

The door to the clubhouse rattled again, cracking open an inch or two and Jared couldn’t look away from it, couldn’t get himself to move his fingers or blink or fucking _breathe_.

Someone was inside.

Someone was inside the house they’d just set on fire.

“Jay…” Chris’ voice quivered as he reached over to grab Jared’s shoulder and pulled on it, frantically grabbing fistfuls of Jared’s jacket to try and get him to turn away from the scene.

“Jared, c’mon! It’s too late. We don’t have the fucking time to go back!”

Jared refused to reply, afraid that his voice would betray his feelings.

His eyes prickled and he decided to blame the irritation on the smoky air.

With any luck, the fire brigade would arrive before the person trapped inside suffocated.

They’d get away with some third-degree burns and smoke poisoning.

“Jared, get a fucking move on!” Steve barked out sharply and Jared blinked, the burning house hidden behind a veil of tears.

He thought about Jensen asking him if he could imagine them having a family together.

He thought about the way he had skimmed his fingers over the soft skin beneath Jensen’s belly button, imagining a child of his own, pure and innocent and _good._

He thought about them together and about how he would _never_ be able to look into Jensen’s eyes again when the same set of eyes have stood by and watched as somebody died while he could have prevented it.

He thought about how he could never cradle a child- their child- with the same hands that have dropped a lit box of matches to the gasoline-soaked ground and listened to the screams of a dying soul.

Jared wanted revenge, sure.

But he wanted revenge on those who deserved it.

And somewhere in the depth of his heart, Jared realized that his mother wouldn’t want him to stoop to a level where the killing of somebody who most likely wasn’t even directly involved in the mess they were in became justified in his grief-riddled mind.

Least of all to avenge her death.

It would be a cheapening of her memory.

And it wouldn’t be something Jared could live with.

“Fuck,” Jared drove his hands through his hair; the sirens now close enough to send his heart pounding. “FUCK!”

They had a minute or two to get out of here, maybe less than that.

Jared kicked the stand off and dismounted.

“What the hell are you doing?” Steve beckoned.

He didn’t bother with a response.

“Step back!” Jared yelled out a warning, unsure of whether it was heard or not.

He took a running start and stormed forward, slamming the door open with a solid, well-aimed kick to the center of the brittle wood, sending a thousand sparks and glowing embers into the dark.

The guy inside was coughing up a fucking lung, crawling on the floor because his legs no longer held him upright and Jared couldn’t believe he had actually contemplated leaving him here to die.

Jared covered his mouth and nose with the fabric of his shirt and blindly grabbed the guy by the jacket, dragging him out over the doorstep and into freedom.

The guy, barely with it enough to know what was going on around him, fumbled for his gun- eyes blurry and swollen from the smoke and Jared easily kicked the semi from his hands, watching it slither across the grass.

Jared spat a glob of saliva to the ground, just as Steve’s fingers wrapped into the fabric of his shirt and gripped him tight, forcefully yanking him back from the guy and nearly causing them both to fall.

“What the fucking hell, man?! Do you **_want_** to get caught by the cops? He tried to fucking shoot you! Screw that piece of shit and let’s go, c’mon!”

“Get off!” Jared dodged Steve’s grasp.

He looked back down at the shivering and gasping mess of a man whose life he had just saved and frowned.

Was that…?

“Jared, we need to get the fuck out of here,” Genevieve appeared in his periphery, looking worried, but Jared didn’t even hear her- not really.

He was too busy taking in the crooked nose and slanted eyes in front of him- the face familiar beneath the mess of tears and carbon black grime that covered the guy’s face.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Jared snorted, shaking his head.

Before any of the others could ask him what was wrong, Jared reached down to tangle his long fingers in the guy’s sooty hair and gruffly yanked his head up so that they could get a good look at his face.

It was Leroy Demasquez.

One of Lucian’s most loyal gang lackeys.

The guy’s body count was higher than all Tarantino flicks combined.

“M-motherfucke—“

That was as far as he got before Jared slammed his boot down hard on the guy’s left thigh where the skin had literally been melted away, leaving nothing but a mass of warped muscle, blood, and blistering skin.

With a hair-raising howl of agony, Leroy flung his arms out, eyes wide as his back arched into an unnatural curve.

His eyes curled back into his head and before either of them could react, his body went limp.

“Fuck,” Chris breathed out, looking up at Jared with wild eyes.

“Quick, help me carry him over to my bike,” Jared ordered sharply, already struggling to lift Leroy’s heavy arm up and sling it over his shoulder.

“What? No way, man. He’s only gonna slow us down.”

“Why the fuck did you save that asshole’s life, anyway?” Steve asked, sounding unnerved.

Jared’s eyes flashed, teeth bared as he hissed at his friends.

Didn’t they realize what a huge bargaining chip Demasquez was?

The fucker had been Lucian’s right-hand-man pretty much from the beginning.

With him in their violence, they wouldn’t only be able to find out where Lucian had dragged Jeff off to, but they would have the perfect leverage to cut themselves a deal with the Reapers.

“Help me carry him or get out of my fucking face. Either way, I’m not gonna leave without him. ”

That seemed to do the trick.

“Jared. The cops—“

The blue and red lights were little more than a smudgy illumination from behind the thick wafts of black smoke darkening the air around them.

But behind their dull glow, the white bodywork of a police car came screeching down the street like a fucking knight in shining armor, black tires squealing on the tarmac.

Jared grunted as they dragged the unconscious man to his feet, carrying most of the guy’s weight as his knees sagged and his limbs flopped lifelessly to the side.

“C’mon, c’mon!” Steve urged, out of breath as they heaved Leroy’s unresponsive body onto Jared’s bike.

“Get going. I’ll take it from here,” Jared blurted out when the police car skidded to a halt, yellow-white headlights shining through the apocalyptic haze of flying ash and black smoke curling around their heads and tipping upwards into the night sky.

“You sure?” Steve’s voice shook, his fingers shaking hard as they awkwardly hovered between Jared, Leroy and himself.

“Fucking go, Steve! GO.”

In seconds Chris, Steve and Genevieve fired up their bikes and took off.

Jared gave them a head start, knowing that the police wouldn’t open fire as long as one of them appears to be unresisting.

He watched them disappear, Leroy’s unconscious body awkwardly propped against his own, when the police car screeched to a halt not too far away from where he was standing, two cops immediately getting out, their black vests stark against the white paint of the car.

“Freeze! Hands where we can see them!”

They drew their guns, moving closer and Jared revved the engine, closing his eyes as his Harley came to life with a roar.

_Let’s do this._

He shot forward so fast the tires of his bike skidded on the hot asphalt.

The cops started firing and Jared zigzagged his way through a hail of bullets, realizing, in a moment of morbid clarity, how fucking relieved he was that Jensen wasn’t here to get caught in the middle of this hell.

 

 

It all seemed to happen in slow motion.

The imperceptible flash of fury in Lucian’s eyes right before his finger tightened on the trigger, the press of metal against his skin, the sharp intake of breath Jeffrey took as he watched from the side.

Jensen was certain he was going to die and in a strange way, he could almost make his peace with it.

He had never really felt like he fit into this world anyway, never felt like he truly belonged.

Not until Jared.

Jensen felt a calm sweep through his entire body, muscles going pliant as the fight left his body.

It must have been that ‘life-flashing-before-your-eyes’ moment they talked about in movies.

He willed his body to relax, welcoming death.

But death never came.

Instead, the dull click of an empty magazine echoed through the room, bringing Jensen out of his trance-like state.

“Boom,” Lucian taunted as he took a step back and removed the muzzle from Jensen’s temple.

Jensen’s eyes widened to the size of saucers; a million emotions coursed through him, from shell-shocked confusion to gut-clenching fear to bitter understanding.

He wasn’t aware of the small noise that escaped his throat as he slumped in his restraints. 

Relief hit him so hard it made him feel lighthearted, face scrunching up and tears burning in his eyes as he dragged in a shuddering inhale.

Lucian’s gaze flickered from Jensen to Jeffrey and then his self-satisfied smile turned into guffawing laughter.

It was the kind of laughter that made you sick inside, that crawled up your spine and made you want to turn your skin inside out. 

“Not so tough after all, huh?” Lucian cackled and Jensen let out a tremulous breath when the man’s rough fingers traced the line of his lips, then moved up to smear the mess of blood and tears and snot all across the blonde’s bruised cheek.

“What happened to all that sass of yours? All that _fire?_ Are you sad because I didn’t take your pathetic excuse of a life? What fun would it be if I killed you this early? No…” Lucian smirked, eyes glinting with malicious glee. “You’re going to die slowly and with Jared’s name on his lips. That I will make sure of.”

With that, Lucian turned his back on them and walked out of the warehouse.

Jeff’s gaze lingered on Jensen, unwavering and heavy as the rusty door fell closed behind the gang leader, leaving them alone.

Jensen swallowed, Adam’s apple dragging along the walls of his throat.

He felt numb. Utterly and completely drained.

“Y’alright?” Jeff asked.

Jensen couldn’t even get himself to snort at the ridiculousness of the question.

It took tremendous effort to get his shaky lips to work again.

“We need to get outta here.”

 

Jared didn’t know how he made it back to the garage in one piece.

He had driven here on autopilot, the one that always kicked in when he was too stressed out or too tired to function properly.

Sometimes he would just find himself in the driveway of the store with no recollection of taking his bike there.

It was his home base.

His safe haven.

It was only right that this was also the place where shit would really hit the fan.

Chris was on him the second he idled the engine and Steve was there too, hovering over him like an overbearing parent. “Are you okay? Did you get hit? Lemme—“ 

“Grab his legs,” Jared nodded down towards Demasquez and Chris did as he was being told.

Demasquez groaned when the burn wound on his leg got jarred, but he didn’t rouse. Genevieve propelled forward, taking hold of Leroy’s shoulder and Chase was there too, slipping an arm around the guy’s torso as they dragged his unconscious ass inside.

Fucker was heavy.

“Y’alright?” Steve asked, voice practically dripping with concern.

Jared nodded as he got off his bike, never even sparing his friend a glance. He was afraid of what would happen if he stopped and gave himself time to breathe- to actually think things through.

“What the hell were you doing back there, Jared? Stalling like that- risking your fucking hide for that goddamn low life piece of shit? You could have gotten killed! Hell, you could have gotten all of us killed!”

Jared frowned when his eyes fell onto one of the flower pots in the back yard.

It was an odd thing to notice, but the pot wasn’t in its usual spot and it wasn’t exactly like either one of them was into gardening or redecorating.

“Fuck you, Jay! Are you even fucking listening to me?” Steve whirled him around by the shoulder, eyes wild with fury and Jared pushed his friend back by the shoulders, before pushing through the back exit of the auto shop.

Jared halted so abruptly in the doorway that Steve crushed into him from the side. “What the—“

His heart plummeted when he noticed the spare key on the counter top… along with a phone that looked suspiciously much like the one that belonged to Jensen.

Jared took a hesitant step forward, heart lodged in his throat.

“Yo, Jay, what are we supposed to do with this fucker?” Chris asked from across the room before landing a swift kick to the unconscious man’s midriff.

Demasquez groaned in pain and curled up on the dirty floor, still too far gone to lift his eyelids.

“Oh my god. His leg...” Katie whispered when she saw the blackened flesh and blistering skin.

“Jared? What are you—“

Jared took another step closer, unable to breathe or blink or do anything but stare at the smartphone lying on their work bench. Because the last time he’d seen this thing it had been in Jensen’s charging station in fucking Harvard. So how the hell had it gotten here?

“JENSEN?” Jared’s gruff voice beckoned through the empty garage as he stormed forward, crossing over to their small bathroom only to find it vacant as well. “Jensen, you in here? Answer me, goddamnit!”

“Why would he be here?” Katie inquired, looking worried as she glanced around the garage.

“I thought you told him to stay out of this?” Genevieve chimed in from where she was kneeling next to Demasquez, working handcuffs onto his wrists and patting his body down for weapons.

Jared had.

He had told Jensen to stay out of this.

He remembered it vividly. In fact, the thought that Jensen was lying in his bed right now, blissfully oblivious to the bloody fucking mess they had brought upon themselves, was one of the few things that kept him going at this point.

Jared swiped a shaking thumb over the screen and sucked in a startled breath when he saw the phone’s screensaver- a picture of Jensen with his arm around Tom and that red-haired girl (what was her name again? Danny? Dannielle?).

“Oh shit,” Chris muttered and Jared’s heart skipped a beat.

“What? What is it?”

“Over here,” Chris’ voice faltered and Jared crossed the distance between them in two quick strides and then proceeded to stop dead in his tracks.

Blood.

There were flecks of blood on the ground.

Right next to a wrench that Jared remembered having put down on the counter a day ago.

The lift table was askew and the rusty wheel balancer was knocked over, a couple of old spark plugs were strewn across the room.

The realization of what had happened knocked every wisp of air from Jared's lungs and he just stood there with an unblinking stare, brain scrambling to make sense of what he was seeing.

Drawing his gun, Steve sent a sharp look towards Katie. “Go check out the front of the store. I’ll take the backyard and the parking lot. He must be here somewhere.”

“He’s not,” Jared’s voice was quiet, gravely so.

Whatever Jensen had been doing in the garage, he wouldn’t have left his phone behind. And he sure as hell wouldn’t have left the door unlocked. Not unless someone had _made_ him leave.

Jared’s phone rang right on cue with the realization of what had happened and he felt the blood drain from his features, his face white as chalk as he fumbled for his cell and looked at the screen.

Unknown caller.

Jared felt sick as he answered the call.

“I think I’ve got something that belongs to you,” the voice came thin and taunting over the line.

Jared shut his eyes and shifted his jaw, forcing himself to _breathe_.

“Cupid-bow lips, dust of freckles, eyes so green they make you go weak in the knees,” Lucian chuckled but Jared didn’t concentrate on his words, on the cruel glee in their tone.

All he listened to, all he could focus on were background noises.

Any sign of life coming from Jensen, anything at all.

“He’s a real catch, you know. And so _fierce_.”

Lucian laughed, a dark, menacing sound filled with sickening pleasure and Jared had never felt anger this raw before.

Had never wanted to kill someone as much as in that very moment.

“That boy’s got some spunk in him. Too bad I’ve been forced to beat that sass right out of him.”

Jared’s grip tightened on the phone until his knuckles turned white and his teeth clenched so tight the tendons stood out on his neck.

“If you’ve touched one hair on his body—“

“You’re going to kill me and make me wish I’d never been born yadda yadda yadda…” there was a smile in Lucian’s voice. “You know me, you know how I operate and you know that there’s way more fun to be had with that pretty little cock slut of yours than just touching him.”

Jared’s fingers were shaking so badly he didn’t even feel the way his nails dug into the skin of his own palm, drawing blood.

“Yeah,” Jared said, deathly calm. “Yeah, I know you. And you probably think you know me, too. But you obviously don’t have a fucking clue of what I’m capable of.”

“I don’t?” Lucian asked in mock surprise.

_No, you really fucking don’t._

Jared looked up at his friends, all of them deathly still in the wake of events and with their wide, unblinking eyes trained on him expectantly.

He licked his bottom lip, thinking of Jensen- of what Jensen meant to him, to all of them.

“No matter how tonight ends, I will wipe your miserable ass off the surface of the fucking earth with a precision the likes of which has never been encountered before. I will _end_ you, Lucian. I’ll be the one to shit fury all over your fucking face and make you _drown_ in it, you fucking hear me you son of a goddamn bitch?”

Lucian whistled. “Sounds like you’ve got some serious anger management issues, boy.”

“I want to talk to him,” Jared demanded, voice clipped.

There was a break and Chris shuffled closer from the side, vibrating with anger. Katie was hovering behind him, one of her hands clamping down hard on Chris’ biceps.

Jared looked at them, knowing they were dying to know what was going on, how _bad_ it was. He willed his fingers to stop shaking long enough for him to control them.

Then he put the call on speaker.

“Whatever this is about, you won’t get shit from us until we’ve got proof that Jensen's alive.”

“Be my guest,” Lucian barked out a command towards one of his lackeys and Jared clenched his eyes shut, half-afraid of whatever came next.

He wasn’t sure what to expect, maybe the sound of crunching bone, of a fist hitting flesh, a blood-curdling scream.

Instead, there was a shuffling noise and then there was heavy breathing.

Sharp, ragged little intakes of air.

“Talk,” Lucian ordered, sounding a bit further away now than before and Jared’s insides clenched in a mix of fear and unspeakable rage. 

His own lungs had stopped craving air as he listened to the pain-filled breaths on the other end.

“Nothing to say to your boyfriend?” Lucian’s voice purred on the other end of the line and then there was a forcibly slow exhale of what sounded like cigarette smoke.

Jared’s eyes widened in horror, mouth snapping open “Jensen, fucking say somethi—“

_Too late._

There was a screech of a metal chair, the frantic clicking of steel cuffs and then the ragged breathing turned into a blood-curdling scream of agony that Jared knew, with stomach-dropping certainty, was Jensen’s.

“You goddamn motherfucker!” Chris yelled into the phone from next to Jared.

The scream rang clearly through the receiver, long and drawled out and _garbled_ with pain.

“Jensen!” Jared shouted into the phone, unaware of the way his own voice cracked. “ _Jensen!”_

“Jensen can’t come to the phone right now.”

“What the fuck do you want, you motherfucker? What is it? Money, the territory? The goddamn fucking city? What?!”

“Why, Jared, I haven’t even started yet and you’re already offering me all of fucking Boston? How very generous.”

Jensen’s scream had tapered off into shaky sobs, his voice- his pain- so close and yet so far away.

It took Jared a moment to realize that Jensen was sobbing out his name, over and over.

_Jared… Jare… Jared… god, please—Jay._

He closed his eyes, feeling sick. “Just fucking tell me what you want.”

“I want the store and the garage. I want you to sign some papers, make it official. And then I want you to bring them here.”

Ignoring everything else Lucian had said, Jared snapped, “Where the fuck’s _‘here’_?”

“I’ll send you the coordinates in exchange for the picture of the signed contract,” Lucian explained, voice smooth and calm. “Oh and Jared? I know what you did with my clubhouse… not exactly a fan.”

“Lucian—“

“I think I should take something to remember Jenny by. What do you say, a finger, maybe? Or an eye?”

Jensen’s voice came through the speaker, sounding wrecked. “Please _, no_ —“

It broke something deep down inside of Jared, hearing the terror in Jensen’s tone because Jensen was one of the strongest people he knew and Jared held no doubt over the fact that it must have taken quite a lot of torture to get him to a point where he started openly showing fear.

“Jensen, listen to me,” Jared pressed out, knuckles curved white around his cell phone. “I’m gonna get you out of there, alright? I’m gonna get you out of there, I fucking promise.”

“Clock’s ticking,” Lucian purred and then the line went dead.

“Jen?! JENSEN!” Jared yelled, his whole body shaking.

His skin was chalk-white, eyes near black and stormy.

Jared lowered the phone from his ear with numb fingers and turned to send a cursory look into the crowd.

They all just looked at him. Every single one of them.

With wide fucking eyes and gaping mouths and terror written squarely across their faces.

They were terrified, fucking furious and in desperate need of a leader, someone to take over control and give them direction.

Jared let out a vicious snarl and with a full-body-twist, hauled his phone across the room.

It hit the wall with a loud smash, causing it to shatter into pieces and sprawl across the dirty floor around them.

“Jared,“ Chris took a step forward, the first one to recover from the shock of what had happened.

Chris never called him Jared. He called him Jay and Jaybird and dickhead and _boss_.

But right now Chris looked at Jared as if he was afraid of him.

As if Jared was cracking.

Thing was, maybe Jared was.

Washing a hand over his face and tangling it in his thick hair, Jared’s eyes flashed as his gaze dropped to Demasquez’ unconscious body on the floor.

Fucker hadn’t roused since they’d brought him here.

An odd sense of calm swept through Jared as he walked towards the lift table and grabbed an old battery from the top.

There was a bucket of water next to it, still grimy from whatever it had been used to clean with.

Jared grabbed that too and then walked over towards Leroy; expression closed off in determination.

“Jay, what are you doing?”

Ignoring the question, Jared dumped the cold and filthy water all over the unconscious man’s head, causing him to come sputtering back to life, arms yanking hard on their cuffs in an instinctive effort to bring them around.

“W-what—whe-ere—“

Jared kicked the guy’s legs apart, jarring the burn wound on his thigh in the process and stepped into the V of his legs.

He crouched down to be on eye-level and held the battery up for inspection.

“You know what this is?” he asked in a deathly calm voice, eyes near-black with fury.

Leroy squirmed on the ground, chest heaving as he bit back a startled scream and ground his teeth into his bottom lip, trying to diminish the pain.

Jared yanked him forward by a fistful of his jacket, enjoying the expression of fear that crossed Leroy’s eyes.

He slid his fingertips under the other man’s jawline and pinned him with a deadly glare.

“That’s a maintenance-free, conventional YUASA battery for motorcycles,” he said matter-of-factly, voice devoid of emotion. “It’s the cheapest kind of battery around because it discharges faster than others and after a while of careless overuse it starts leaking electrolyte.”

If possible, the look of confusion on Leroy’s face deepened. “What the fuck—“

“You know what electrolyte means?”

“Jared,“ Steve tried to intervene from the side, deep worry in his words, but Jared ignored him.

“Do. You. Know. What. Electrolyte. Means?”

Leroy nodded his head, a flicker of panic dancing across his features.

“Battery acid,” Jared answered his own question, voice deathly calm and smooth. “Do you want to know what I’m going to do with it?”

Jared could have sworn you could have heard a needle drop in the deafening silence that followed his question.

Jared feasted on the growing panic in Leroy’s eyes.

He _thrived_ on it, channeling all his anger, his desperation, his overwhelming guilt and self-hatred over what had happened to Jensen into the task at hand.

Leroy looked down at his leg, the one that had been licked by fire, blistered skin partially hanging off and flesh and sinew exposed and he shook his head, desperation filling his eyes.

“I’m going to ask you this one time- just _once_ \- you understand me?” Jared continued, not batting an eye at the other man’s tear-filled gaze and pathetic pleas. “Where did Lucian take Jeff and Jensen to?”

“Boston Harbor.”

“What’s the fucking address?” Jared snapped, voice hard.

“I-It’s at the Long Wharf, near Waterfront Station. An abandoned w-warehouse… he a-always brings them there. I fucking swear—“

Jared barely suppressed the urge to empty his whole fucking clip into that pathetic asshole.

He hadn’t even hurt the guy yet and he was already babbling like an idiot, trying to save his pathetic excuse of a life by ratting his gang out.

Jared snorted, disgusted.

“Wasn’t too hard now, was it?” he asked, looking Leroy deep into the eyes.

He waited for the fucker to catch on with the program- to read the fury from Jared’s eyes- to realize with irrevocable certainty what was about to happen next.

“ _No no no no_ , don’t do this— don’t you fucking—“

Without another word, Jared knocked the unscrewed cover of the battery off and dumped its contents onto Leroy’s burn wound.

The guy let out a torturous scream, overwhelmed by excruciating pain as his entire body jerked spastically on the ground.

The screams were so harrowing that Katie covered her ears and Steve clamped a hand over his mouth as if to keep himself from getting sick.

Jared watched in a strange mix of horror and satisfaction as the bubbling acid ate relentlessly at the injured man’s sizzled flesh, at the vulnerable muscle that lay exposed from the fire at the clubhouse.

Then he grabbed Leroy’s hair, gruffly yanking his head up to look at him.

“If I find out that you lied to me about this, I’ll come back and make you _drink_  the rest.”

Jared doubted the guy understood a word he was saying, still incoherent with agony and muttering broken pleas and unintelligible words, but he wasn’t joking.

It wasn’t a threat as much as it was a fucking promise.

With one last jostle, Jared dropped the guy to the ground like a broken rag doll.

He slowly turned around to face the others, his face kept emotionless, blank.

They all looked at him as if they were seeing him for the very first time.

Jared didn't care.

He jammed the clip back into his gun and pulled back the slide.

“Go get your guns.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry for the long wait, guys. I was planning on cramming all the action and the final showdown between the Reapers and the Legion into this chapter, but then I realized that the chapter was getting too long (20k words) and that I needed to make 2 chapters out of it. So right now I'm halfway into chapter 18 and planning to post it either at the end of this week or early next week ;) In any case, I hope you're still enjoying this. As always, reviews are more than welcome and make me insanely happy :D Much love!! <3


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning* for graphic descriptions of physical and psychological torture and graphic violence. Sexual innuendos. Homophobic content. Character death and murder. But most of all VIOLENCE, peeps. Don't take the warnings for this chapter lightly.

** **

** **

**Open Road  
Chapter 18**

“C’n I get s’me water?”

Everything was fuzzy and blurred and Jensen had trouble getting his mind to work properly.

It took a herculean effort to move his lips, every movement straining either his broken ribs or sending agonizing bolts of pain through his head.

He was hanging in his restraints, barely able to lift his head, skin thick with crusted blood and sweat and tears.

But worse than the pain and the humiliation and the fear of dying- worse than all of it combined- was the thirst.

It occurred to Jensen that he’d never really known thirst before. Not like this, anyway.

His saliva was thick like wallpaper paste, throat parched as if it had been extracted and laid out in the scorching sun to dry.

It gnawed at him, tormented him, dominating his every thought until he could think of nothing other than finding some cool liquid to quench it.

Jensen couldn’t recall when he’d made his last snappy comment or when fiery comebacks had turned into weak protests and desperate pleas.

There were several cigarette burns on his body and his head felt like somebody tried to jackhammer his way through his skull, the throbbing only increased now that dehydration and shock had set in.

“C’n I just—“

“Shut up, bitch.” A palm cracked down hard across Jensen’s face, snapping it back with a force that caused black spots to spark through his vision.

With his hands cuffed behind his back, Jensen had no way to brace himself and he was jerked to the side, nearly causing the chair to topple over.

There was laughter and Jensen bit back a curse, panting through the searing white pain that had once again engulfed his senses.

“That’s enough! Boss said not to fuck him up too badly, remember?” a second voice chimed in and then someone snagged the front of Jensen’s torn shirt and hauled him upright.

“Look at me,” the voice commanded and Jensen did his best to return the man’s stare, even when it was hard to focus his vision with everything swimming in and out of proportion and black spots dancing in the corner of his eyes.

Burly guy. Navy cap. Gruff voice. _Ty._

“You ok?” Ty asked and Jensen wasn’t foolish enough to assume there was actual concern in the older man’s voice.

“What d’ya think?” Jensen bit out, shivering as the words lapped at his remaining strength.

The entire left side of his face had swollen from the earlier beating, eyes puffy and purple from where the sensitive flesh had forcibly clashed with the sharp bones surrounding his eye sockets.

His left cheekbone was broken.

And while the injury wasn’t life-threatening, Jensen knew it would require treatment once he got out of here.

Any punches added to the broken bone would make things more complicated and fragments of it could compress nerves or damage the muscles involved in his ability to chew.

So yeah, Jensen needed to go down a different route, avoid further provocations until he figured out a plan to get out of here.

Jeff was still in the chair next to him, but he had passed out a while ago, succumbing to the pain gravity of his own injuries.

They were still in the damn warehouse, but Lucian had left the room after his phone call with Jared, leaving him alone in the dimly lit hall with Ty and two other goons.

The guys were about his age, maybe a little older but definitely in a better physical shape than Jensen and that wasn’t even counting in the fact that he was concussed and outnumbered.

Jensen dragged in a deep breath through his blood-crusted nose.

“Water,” he rasped after a moment of silence, the sweat chilling on his brow and causing him to shiver. “If you want to help me— water, please.”

Ty grabbed a bottle of water from a nearby table and uncapped it before lifting it to Jensen’s shaking lips, tipping it just far enough for the cool liquid to spill into his mouth.

Jensen had about three seconds of initial skepticism about whether or not the water could be drugged before he decided to screw it all and started gulping the cool liquid down in earnest, some of it dribbling down his chin and onto the threadbare shirt he was wearing.

If they had wanted to drug him, they would have done it by now.

Besides, not even these idiots would be stupid enough to give him drugs when he was concussed and barely breathing.

After all, Lucian apparently needed him alive.

“Greedy little slut,” one of the goons, a short, bulky guy with layered clothing, snorted with a dirty grin on his lips. “I’ve got some more over here if you want.”

The guy reached down to palm his crotch and Jensen’s stomach nearly turned in revulsion.

He tried to block out the words and swallowed past the disgust that coursed through his veins at the crude gesture.

But whatever self-control he had still possessed went flying out the window when the guy made a move on him, roughly shoving past Ty and starting to fumble with his zipper.

“Actually, why don’t I give you a demonstration?” he grinned, licking his bottom lip. “Put that mouth of yours to better use. Maybe I’ll snap a picture too. Send it to Jared. Bet he’d love that.”

The guy reached inside his jeans to pull his dick out and something inside of Jensen snapped.

“Put that thing anywhere near my mouth and you’ll spend the rest of your miserable, pathetic life as a girl,” he threatened, using the only leverage he had. “I’ll bite it off, I swear to god.”

“You little—“ the guy’s eyes flashed with fury and he got as far as to pull a curled fist back for a punch.

Jensen readied himself for the pain, but it never came.

Ty’s fingers had wrapped around the guy’s fist, forcefully holding him back.

“Keep it in your damn pants,” he growled out as the two men stared each other down. “The boss didn’t give orders for this.”

“So what?” the lackey spat. “Kid’s gonna die one way or another. Who says we can’t have a little fun with him before he goes?”

He had yellowish teeth and greasy hair that hung lifelessly into his eyes.

"I bet the bitch would fucking like it. Taking it like a real pro," when he leaned in closer, Jensen turned his head to the side, disgusted. "I say we take a few turns before it's too late. Who knows? Maybe the boss is right and we'll knock him up in the process."

"Jared will kill you," Jensen grated out, voice rough with his hatred for the guy. "He'll fucking _end_ you."

Harsh laughter gurgled up the guy's throat, low and full of derision. "You seriously think Jared gives a shit about you? He'd probably be glad we got rid of you for him, save him the fucking trouble."

Jensen swallowed hard and forced himself not to listen to the guy, but the words still hurt, no matter how hard he tried to tell himself that they weren't true. 

“I said that's enough,” Ty eventually said, shoving the guy back by the shoulders so hard, he nearly fell on his ass. "That's not what we brought him here for."

Jensen watched them both with wide eyes, for once glad for Ty’s presence.

The guy was visibly fuming, two seconds away from doing something massively stupid, like starting a fistfight with one of his own allies.

Jensen wasn’t surprised. The guy had the brain of a microbe.

But then he seemed to think better of it, some of the fury that had glinted in his eyes not even a second ago, simmered back down.

“Fine,” he spat out, visibly unhappy as he tucked his dick back into his jeans.

Jensen’s relief was short-lived when the guy leaned down to gruffly whisper into his ear, “Guess I’ll just have to take it out of you in flesh later tonight.”

Jensen shuddered and slumped back into his restraints when the guy turned around with a last salacious grin and a wink in his direction.

“I’m done with the babysitting bullshit,” the guy yanked his ally forward by the shoulder and together they crossed over to the exit.

The door fell closed behind them, leaving Jensen alone with Ty in the vast empty space of the warehouse.

Ty gave him a look. “No word of thanks?”

“Thanks?” Jensen thought he had quirked an eyebrow, but he couldn’t be sure with his face being the swollen, bloodied mess that it was and hurting all over. “I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you.”

“Do you really believe that?” Ty asked in return, expression openly curious.

He grabbed a chair and sat down on it, resting his gun in his lap as he held Jensen’s glare.

“Why not just take Jeffrey?” Jensen challenged because Jared would have come for his father too- would have done anything, cut any type of deal to save Jeff’s life. “Why both of us?”

Ty shrugged, never one for many words. “Insurance.”

Jensen’s gaze dropped and fell away, jaw shifting as minutes of silence passed between them.

He suspected there was more to his kidnapping than being an insurance policy, but he didn’t have the energy to argue about it.

There was something else, however, he couldn’t stop thinking about.

“I don’t understand, Ty. What’s in this whole thing for you?”

“What do you mean?”

Jensen looked up to study Ty’s features. “Why would you do this to the gang?”

“What fucking gang?” It was Ty’s turn to look incredulous, voice rising a notch in anger. “The Black Legion is just a fucking bunch of good-for-nothing ex-cons, trying to give life a second chance. They aren’t a biker gang. They’re a fucking disgrace.”

Ty got up from his seat, nearly knocking it over in the process.

“Jeff promised us money, wealth, he promised to give us a fresh start, clean slate and all, but the business didn’t run as well as he’d expected… there were losses, cutbacks, 60-hour work weeks.”

Jensen couldn’t help it.

Despite the pain it caused him, he huffed out a shaky laugh.

“What’s 60 hours of work compared to a twenty-five-to-life prison sentence?”

At least with Jeff they had a shot at an honest-to-god life, earning their money fair and square.

“Guess I’m just not cut out for the standard 9-5 job,” Ty gave a smug smile and whatever spark of hope Jensen had felt earlier vanished into thin air when he saw the unspoken malice in the older man’s glare. “All I had to do was break that useless truce.”

Jensen closed his eyes as realization overcame him.

He remembered the day when they had all assembled in the garage after Jared had paid the Reapers a visit in their clubhouse.

He remembered watching that footage of Chad’s accident and wondering how on earth Jared and the others couldn’t tell which two members of the gang they’d been dealing with.

He remembered wondering about the fact that the Reapers would willingly keep incriminating evidence in their clubhouse when all it would have taken is one goddamn police officer to storm the fucking place and send them all off to spend the rest of their lives in jail for attempted murder.

But now it suddenly all made perfect sense.

“It was you,” Jensen said, voice dull as it echoed through the warehouse. “You went after Chad because you knew it wasn’t something Jared would let slide. You started all of this.”

Ty grinned, looking down at the glinting steel of the gun he held in a loose grasp.

“I wasn’t alone…” he admitted.

And Jensen’s stomach dropped.

He had seen that damn video and there had been two ‘Reapers’ on the footage.

Two.

Not one.

Which meant there was another snitch- another traitor in their ranks, asides from Ty. Someone who was most likely with Jared and the rest of the gang as they spoke. Right, the fuck now.

“Chase?” Jensen bit out questioningly, the name tasting bitter on his tongue.

Chase had been an asshole right from the start, running his mouth and causing trouble as often as he possibly could. Jensen had suspected that something was off with him right from the beginning, but he had never really been able to pinpoint what it was.

Ty laughed and shook his head. “Chase might be an arrogant asshole, but he’s loyal to a fault.”

And then Jensen remembered something else.

On the day Jared had introduced him to the crew, he had met two other gang members that had been part of the Legion from pretty much the beginning.

One of them was a bit older even than Jeffrey himself, with a silver-streaked three-day stubble and dark circles beneath his eyes.

His accent had sounded British and his demeanor had been brusque.

From what Jensen recalled, the others had called him… “Mark.”

Ty looked up at Jensen with flashing eyes and that was all the confirmation Jensen needed.

“You and him used to be part of the Reapers until Jared converted you… what happened? Did you start craving the bloodbaths, the drug heists, the illegal intrigues?”

“Something like that, yeah…” Ty huffed out a breath, unfazed by Jensen’s murderous glare. “And it was so fucking easy to trick them, too… all we had to do was snatch two of their bikes, put on a couple of their jackets and chase that idiot Chad off the highway.”

Jensen’s glower intensified.

He couldn’t believe that Ty had spent the past month drinking and laughing and partying with the rest of the gang, when he had been backstabbing and betraying them all along- when he had been the one to cause Chad’s accident and all the crap that had followed the attack.

“I bet Lucian wasn’t too fond of your little plan? What did you tell him?”

“Nothing… by the time he got hold of the footage and let one of his loyal lackeys survey it, Jared came in the front door, all raging bull, and wreaked havoc on the place.”

“And let me guess,” Jensen grimaced. “You were the one telling Jared the Reapers had their fingers in the pie with Chad’s accident.”

“You’re good,” Ty smirked, looking mildly impressed.

Jensen just continued to glare at him. There was no way to put his hatred- his _disgust_ for the man in front of him into words. 

Ty held his gaze, the smirk slowly vanishing from his lips. He let out a heavy sigh and got up from his chair, weighing his gun as if to try and gauge how heavy it was.

“I know you’re holding on to that fairytale fantasy that Jared will come in here, guns blazing and rescue you, but it ain’t happening, kid. You’ll die tonight. Your blood is going to decorate Jared’s face and I'll be laughing at him when it happens.”

Ty holstered his gun and walked out the door without another word, leaving Jensen all to himself with his racing heart and the sickening feeling that maybe Ty was right, maybe that was exactly how all of this was going to end.

 

  ****

Misha and Danneel were ready to leave the dorm room, when the door to the apartment was ripped open, revealing a tousled-looking Tom.

Balancing a couple of books, paper copies, a cup of coffee and his open laptop in his long arms, Tom sent a cursory glance through the room, which was apparently all it took to notice Jensen’s absence.

“Where's Jensen? I need to talk to him.”

Tom dropped his laptop and the books on the couch table, worry lines marring his features as he hurriedly flicked through what looked like a set of criminal records in his hands.

After a beat of silence, Tom’s hands stilled and he looked up at them with raised eyebrows.

“What’s with you two? Is he in the bathroom or something? JENSEN? Get your ass out here, man. You’re gonna want to hear this!”

“He’s not here,” Misha said, expression contrite and tone apologetic.

“What do you mean he’s not here? Where the hell did he go?”

“Jared’s garage,” Danneel ‘s voice was so soft it was barely audible.

“Jared’s—“ Tom’s voice faltered as he tried to comprehend what he had just been told.

He looked at Danneel, then over at Misha as if to beg the other man to declare the whole thing as some kind of cruel joke on his behalf. “Are you messing with me?”

Danneel swallowed, shuffling her feet as the silence stretched between them.

“You mean to tell me that Jensen drove all the way to Roxbury and broke into Jared’s office at twelve-thirty at night? Despite Jared having specifically told him to stay in his goddamn apartment- where it was _safe_?”

“Jensen said—“

“Screw what Jensen said!” Tom’s voice shook. “He isn’t answering his phone, Mish! Do you even know what the people he surrounds himself with are capable of? God fucking damn it!”

Tom slammed his laptop shut and gathered up all papers on the couch table before hastily stuffing the documents into the duffle bag Jensen kept in the closet for lacrosse practice.

Then Tom seemed to gather his bearings again, visibly forcing himself to pull it together, as he reached up to wash both his hands over his face and tangle them in his hair.

“Alright… okay, we need to get going. Pack your shit and let’s roll.”

Misha nodded as he tossed Tom the keys and Danneel grabbed her phone and her handbag.

They shut off the lights and locked the door before hurrying down the stairs and out of Lionel Hall.

None of them said a word as they jogged across the Harvard lawn but the thawed grass and gravel crunched loudly under their shoes, almost hauntingly so.

They entered the garage, thankful to see that it was empty.

“We found a couple of mistakes in one of Jared’s old income statements… that’s why Jensen wanted to look into some of their old accounts.“

“They’re not mistakes,” Tom pulled a document from the stack of copies in the bag and held it out for Misha’s inspection as he made a beeline for his black Volkswagen. “That’s a bank account from Jeffrey Dean Morgan, dating back to a week before he opened.”

Tom pointed at a series of partial payments made within a time span of about a month, always between five and ten thousand dollars.

“Guy’s been fresh out of prison after getting charged with aggravated battery and suddenly starts making deposits of up to ten grand? No way, right? Now check this out—“

Tom pulled another sheet from the pile of documents and handed it to his friends.

“About a month before his first deposit the DEA busted a drug-dealing scheme that linked a certain illegal biker gang to major drug trafficking operations in Latin America. Now guess how much money the heist was worth?”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” Misha said slowly, seemingly lost in thought. And then his eyes suddenly widened with realization. “Which is the exact amount Jeff originally invested in the garage!”

With the sinking feeling of dread in her stomach, Danneel drew the only logical conclusion.

“They were money laundering.”

“Yeah,” Tom started the car and backed out of the parking lot with much more speed than usually, causing both Danneel and Misha to exchange a worried glance as they rushed to put belts on. “But only with the initial investment of fifty grand. After that, there’s nothing. No more laundering, no tax fraud- nada. Looks like they were using whatever dirty money they got from their illegal schemes to start a new life of their own."

He slammed the car into gear and peeled out of the garage, causing the vehicle to round the corner in a sharp turn of squealing tires as he took them out the exit.

“What about Jared?” Misha eventually asked. “What did you find on his records? I mean the things he did… they’re not too bad, right?”

Tom’s gaze was fixated stubbornly on the empty street ahead of him as he floored the gas pedal, breaking the town’s speed limit. “Mostly bar brawls and street fights. A couple of broken noses along with a couple of minor charges regarding insurance fraud.”

“Well, it’s not exactly like we expected them to have a clean slate,” Danneel voiced her thoughts. “I thought that’s what Jensen asked you to do- I mean, you did what he asked you to do, right?”

“Yeah, I did it,” Tom said and Danneel couldn’t say whether she was relieved or not.

After all, it seemed like they were helping some serious criminals to get away with their felonies.

“I promised him,” Tom added, softer this time. “He said… Jensen said that he—“

“We heard,” Misha nodding his head.

Yeah, they had heard Jensen’s unexpected admission on the phone.

_I love him, Tommy._

“So what are we going to do now?” Danneel asked. “We track down his phone and then what?”

“Then we call the cops. Let them clear this whole thing up,” Tom explained slowly, seeming oddly calm about this whole thing, almost as if he’d thought it all through before.

“That’s why Jensen wanted me to do all this. He knew the gang would never involve the police with a criminal record as long and dirty as theirs. But now…”

“Now they’re only going to be held accountable for whatever happens tonight,” Danneel concluded, lost in thought.

Maybe, if they were quick enough, they could save Jared and his gang from doing something incredibly stupid.

“Step on the gas,” Misha urged Tom on, seemingly coming to the same realization.

Danneel took a shaky breath and sent a quick prayer to heaven.

_‘Please, please, just let Jensen be okay.’_

 

** **

 

They were about to head off when Jared snatched Katie by the arm and dragged her to the side, away from the other gang members.

“Hey, what are you—“

“You’re not going,” Jared’s voice was hard, his eyes even more so.

One look into his stone-carved expression should have been enough to see the authority behind it.

But Katie had never been one to cave easily. “Like hell, I’m not.”

Jared didn’t have time for discussions.

In one swift move, he pulled her arm to the side and brought a pair of handcuffs around, locking one end around her wrist and the other around a nearby steel pipe with an audible ‘click’.

Her eyes went impossibly wide as she looked up at him in shock and yanked on the cuffs.

“What the fucking hell, Jared? Are you kidding me?! Get these off!”

“I know you think you’re tough and you can handle it, but chances are none of us are gonna make it out of this thing alive. And If I have to die tonight, I’d like to die knowing that your blood isn’t on my hands.”

“You’re joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Jared asked, deathly calm.

A flicker of desperation crossed Katie’s features as she jerked on the cuff, trying to get free.

“So you’re just gonna fucking leave me behind like some stupid fucking kid?”

“Yeah,” Jared said. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. And when you’re forty and married to some douche with long hair and an eerie resemblance to a certain someone called Steve, you’re gonna think back to this day and fucking thank me for it.”

Katie’s eyes filled and she swallowed down whatever protest was on her lips.

Jared glanced down at the cuffs and let out a slow breath.

“I’m gonna take these off again because I know you’re gonna pick them the second my back’s turned. But if you come after us, Katie… I’m gonna shoot you in your damn leg.”

Katie looked shocked, mouth slightly agape as she stared up at Jared.

“I’m dead serious," he added softly, eyes never wavering from hers.

Jared stared at her for good measure before he eventually unlocked the handcuffs again, dropping them carelessly on the ground.

Katie rubbed absentmindedly at her wrist and averted her tear-filled gaze as if to try and keep herself together.

“Why?” she asked, chin quivering as she tried to hold back her tears. “Do you think I’m not good enough?”

Jared didn’t miss a beat. “I think you’re too good. There’s a difference.”

He had full and complete trust in Katie’s abilities, both in the garage and in a fight.

But that wasn't what this was about.

Leaning in, Jared gave her a wavering smile, tried really hard to make the simple gesture count as he stroke a loose strand of colored hair from her face. 

“Stay out of trouble, you hear? Go to fucking college if you want… get married. Have two point fucking kids and name one of them after me.”

Katie gave him a watery snort. “Your name’s fucking awful.”

Jared chuckled, heart giving out for the girl in front of him.

“C’mere,” he pulled her in for a hug.

Katie fisted his jacket with her hands, holding on for dear life. “Promise me you’re gonna at least try to come back in one piece. And bring Jensen along while you’re at it.”

“I will,” Jared promised, before pulling back. Because while he couldn’t say the same fucking thing about himself, he knew with absolute certainty that he was going to get Jensen out of there, breathing.

Then Jared turned around towards the confused faces of the rest of the gang.

He shifted his jaw, looking down at his feet before swinging himself onto his bike.

None of the others moved.

“You’ve got five minutes,” Jared said, not wanting to specify what the time would be used for.

Saying goodbye had never been one of his strengths. It was too emotional. Too final.

But he knew the rest of the gang would never forgive him if they didn’t get a chance to exchange a few last words with the girl they’d all come to know and love over the past year and a half.

Steve looked torn as he stared at Jared.

There was a silent accusation in his gaze, but also gratefulness and heartbreak.

Jared grabbed Steve by his arm, fingers tight as they dug into his friend’s jacket “You wanna stay here with her, I’m not gonna hold ye’ back. Just say the fucking word.”

It was a one-time offer.

Jared wanted nothing more but to leave the rest of the gang here because he knew what lay ahead of them- knew that the chances of them surviving the night were close to zero.

And that with each passing minute they wasted talking and hugging and fucking preparing themselves for the fight, Jensen and Jeff were suffering.

Steve looked at Jared and licked his bottom lip, indecision marring his features.

He was a good guy, the best kind of friend someone could hope for.

But he was also kinda dumb sometimes... especially when it came to important life decisions.

“Can’t very well leave your sorry ass to die,” the long-haired man snorted, a sad shimmer in his eyes as he met Jared’s intense gaze.

Jared’s heart protested- raged against Steve’s decision- but he swallowed past the urge to just drive off into the night by himself, leaving all of his friends behind so they would be spared.

Instead, he looked off into the vague distance and nodded his head.

“Make your words count when you talk to her,” he advised with a none-too-subtle nod in Katie’s direction.

_They might be the last fucking words you ever say to her._

Steve turned heel and stood in front of Katie for about ten seconds before he reached up to gently cup her cheek and pulled her in for a kiss that would have doubtlessly sent the whole gang cheering under different circumstances.

Jared snorted and averted his gaze out of decency.

He fired up the engine of his bike and hit the kickstand with his boots.

Sometimes, words were overrated, anyway.

 

 

 

“Jeff,” Jensen hissed the name out under his breath, eyes never leaving the warehouse entrance. “Jeff, wake up, c’mon!”

_Don’t leave me to die in this shithole all by myself._

Jensen was hurting everywhere. He was pretty sure if he hadn’t been tied to a chair, he would have lost the ability to hold himself up a long time ago.

The past couple of hours had undoubtedly been the worst of his entire life.

But he wasn’t just going to sit here and wait for his own execution.

He owed it to Jared to fight- to not just give up on himself.

He was a goddamn fucking genius and that was a trait of himself he’d grown up hating about his own character- something that had made him different- something that had made him a _freak_ in a world where ‘being normal’ was the way to go.

But now, right here, in this goddamn warehouse and tortured by the hands of a crime syndicate, Jensen had never been more thankful for the fact that his brain was like a bloodhound when it came to knowledge- storing even the weirdest bits of information away in the depths of his mind until, at some point, he might come around to need it.

The chain handcuffs used to restrain his hands were of the standard double-lock kind, which meant they lent a bit of flexibility where the short metal chain connected his wrists.

In order to disengage the lock, Jensen would need a bobby pin or some other item that was small enough to slip inside the locking mechanism. But he didn’t have anything on him.

Which meant he would have to use brute force to get out of them.

And that meant he needed to get out of the zip ties first.

_Okay, Jensen, focus._

_What do you know about_ zip _ties?_

They usually consisted of sturdy Nylon tape and contained a series of tiny teeth running lengthwise down the side, as well as a small ratchet with more teeth housed inside a small case. The tape was then threaded through the open case so that the valley aligned with the teeth of the ratchet, locking the hard plastic firmly in place.

That was all there was to it.

All that currently stood between Jensen and fucking freedom, was a tiny chunk of plastic fixed to a piece of Nylon tape.

Sure, there was also Lucian and his goons and half a fucking arsenal between them, but right now, all Jensen knew was that there were two things you needed for an escape mission and they were: time and opportunity.

And since his captors had left Jensen and Jeff alone for the first time in hours, Jensen noted that it was time to make a move.

This might as well be the only shot they’d get to attempt an escape and Jensen wasn’t about to pass it up.

He blinked tears and sweat from his eyes as he tried to study the thin piece of plastic that had been fixated around his ankles, tying them to each of the chair’s legs.

The zip ties were secured firmly, but not tight enough to cut off blood supply.

Jensen shot another fleeting glance over to the building’s entrance, then moved his gaze over to Jeff, who seemed to finally rouse from unconsciousness.

He watched as the older man stirred in his own chair, lolling his head from side to side aimlessly as he grumbled unintelligible nonsense to himself.

“Jeff,” Jensen hissed, voice strained with desperation. “Jeff, can you hear me? I need you, Jeff. Come on.”

From what Jensen remembered (he must have seen it on TV or something…) there were three ways to get out of zip ties: breaking the lock, using some kind of friction to saw through the plastic and shimmying out of them by creating leeway between the Nylon and his wrists/ankles.

Since all three options were kind of out of the question for Jensen, he shifted his gaze over to Jeffrey and noticed, with no small amount of relief, that the older man’s ankles had not been tied to the chair’s legs like his own, but tied together instead.

Jeff winced and his eyelashes fluttered open, pupils blown and eyes so thickly veined and blotchy they looked as if he had spent three days crying non-stop.

Jensen had never been so relieved to look into the guy’s eyes before.

“Y’alright?” he whispered, not wanting to alert his captors by talking too loud.

It took some visible effort for Jeff to gather his bearings, but after a second of letting his drooping gaze wander around the room, sluggish limbs jerking lazily in his restraints, Jeff’s gaze came to linger on Jensen’s abdomen and he sucked in a shaky breath.

Jensen looked down at his own chest, shivering a little at the sight of clotted blood and cigarette burns around the line of his collarbones and throat, where the battered remnants of his T-shirts exposed the abused flesh.

The burn wounds were going to leave nasty scars.

A permanent reminder of the torture he’d been subjected to.

Jensen swallowed and tried not to think about it, but for a second, just the briefest moment, his low self-esteem reared its ugly head, forcing him to imagine Jared as he looked at his body in disgust, put off by the scars that would forever be a testament of Jensen’s weakness and stupidity.

“Fuck, kid…” Jeff slurred out the words, eyes shimmering with a strange kind of regret and guilt. “The fuck did these bastards do to you?”

“We need to get out of here,” Jensen insisted, ignoring Jeff’s question. “I don’t know how much time we have before they come back.”

Jeff straightened up a bit more in his seat, looking skeptical. “No shit. You got an idea how we’re gonna do that?”

“A vague one, yeah,” Jensen said, nodding his head towards Jeff’s legs. “Can you test your restraints for me? Try to flex your feet and see how much play you got between the tie and your ankles.”

“Already tried,” Jeff shook his head, sounding defeated. “Afraid I’m stuck in here for good.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” Jensen said, much to Jeff’s confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“They need to be as tight as possible. Maybe you can tighten them by wriggling around or something… tighten them as far as they go and make sure the latch is between your feet.”

Jeff still looked a bit skeptical, like he wasn’t a hundred percent sure to trust the advice of a heavily concussed, bloodied college kid over his own instincts, but to Jensen’s surprise, he did what Jensen said after only a few seconds of thoughtful silence.

Rocking back in his chair to allow more room, Jeff moved his restrained legs around so the excessive piece of plastic was pinched between the floor and the chair’s leg and then pulled hard on his feet by stretching them forward.

The tell-tale clicking noise of the teeth slipping in place was followed by a pained hiss and a grimace from Jeffrey. The older man was panting hard, cold sweat dripping from his forehead as he slowly blinked his eyes back open and looked over at Jensen. “What now?”

“You need to lift your legs up high and bring them down hard against one of the chair’s legs,” Jensen further explained as he shuffled his own chair closer to Jeffrey’s, careful so as to not make too much noise.

He was breathing hard when he finally slumped back down into his seat, which was now located right in front of the older man.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment before Jeff lifted up his legs the way Jensen had instructed him to.

“Flare your legs out in a sideways motion after the impact. Most people stop when they feel pain, but you gotta move all the way through, alright? The ties should break at their weakest link, which is the locking mechanism.”

Jeffrey nodded, pressing his lips together.

His face was closed off in concentration, eyes at half-mast as he lifted his bound legs up as far as they went.

He didn’t ask Jensen how he knew all that shit or why. He just trusted in the younger man’s wit and intelligence, which wasn’t something Jensen had expected.

Then Jeff brought his bound legs down hard against the metal in a swift downward motion, suppressing a pained grunt as the zip tie broke in half and freed both his ankles.

The chair nearly toppled over from the force of the movement and Jensen could only stare in a mix of surprise and relief as Jeff panted and kicked off the remainders of the broken zip tie from his ankles. 

“Okay, okay, that’s good, now move your chair so it’s right in front of mine,” Jensen continued low under his breath, sending another frantic glance towards the door.

He’d been counting seconds in his head or trying to, anyway.

He was at 489.

A little over seven minutes.

If Ty had left to take a piss, he probably wouldn’t take longer than ten minutes, maybe a little more. That meant they only had about three minutes left.

Jensen turned his chair around and looked at Jeff from over his shoulder, body twisted unnaturally to the side as he tried to meet the older man’s gaze.

“You need to hit ‘em hard, alright? No holding back.”

He could see the exact moment when it dawned on Jeffrey, blood draining from his face. “Jensen, I can’t—“

“You _have_ to,” Jensen bit out harshly, because he didn’t exactly look forward to having his thumb broken, but if it was a choice between thirty seconds of mind-blowing agony or a cruel and slow death by the hands of that asshole Lucian and his perverted entourage, Jensen was left with no choice at all. “This might as well be our only opportunity to get out of here, you understand me? You don’t get your shit together and slam your boots down on that chain and we’re all gonna die— you, me and Jared, you get that?”

Jeffrey swallowed, visibly fighting for control as he tried to ready himself for the task at hand. But then something changed in his eyes, a flicker of dark resignation settling in the dark depths of his gaze.

He gave a jerky nod in accordance and Jensen turned his head back around, fixating a dirty crack on the floor in the distance.

He took a deep inhale before gathering up as much of the bloodied fabric of his shirt with his mouth and clenching down hard on the fabric with his teeth to smother the sounds of agony that would doubtlessly fill the air in a moment.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Jensen concentrated on the sound of Jeff’s gruff voice as he started counting.

“One… two—“

Jeffrey slammed his boot down hard against the cuffs and when the bone snapped with a sickening crunch, Jensen let out a heart-piercing scream that went through marrow and bone.

The shirt did little to muffle Jensen’s agonized scream and Jeff let out a string of curses as his gaze was instinctively drawn back to the door. If someone had heard them, they needed to move quickly, or all was lost.

“Jensen, listen to me—“

Jensen’s ears were ringing, his whole body was shaking uncontrollably, as tears of pain streamed down his ashen cheeks and dripped from his chin.

His face was closed off in a broken grimace, skin sickly pale and clammy.

His screams had a raw quality to them, the realness and raw devastation of a person being tortured, of a human being consumed by a pain that knew no end or limit.

“Jensen, they’re gonna come in here any second. You gotta get a fucking hold of yourself.”

Searing fire burst through Jensen’s arm and pulsated through his bones, intensifying with each ragged breath and desperate sob, jarring his arm even further.

With each inhale the pain seemed to amplify, his entire frame quivering as his consciousness seemed to ebb. A dark mess of twirled thoughts threatened to overwhelm him, a bright firework exploding in the corner of his vision.

“Look at me- hey!” Jeff snapped, getting desperate, now. “I said look at me!”

Jensen’s chest heaved and stuttered.

Then he went quiet, his drawled out scream tempering off into quiet panting and shuddered sobs.

He turned away with tremendous effort, eyes having frozen over like the surface of a pond, robbing them of their usual warmth and vibrancy.

And Jeff rationally knew that Jensen was still in there somewhere, lost in the depths of his pain, but right now, Jensen had taken a huge step back from reality.

He saw it in the way Jensen sat hunched over and shivering in the chair, cheeks still damp with his tears as he slowly- so slowly- slipped his mangled wrist out of the closed cuffs and grunted when the fractured bone was jostled in the process.

“Can you get out of the zip ties?” Jeff’s voice was shaky and low, barely audible over Jensen’s sharp intakes of air. When there was no response from the younger man, Jeff snapped. “Jensen! Pull yourself together!”

Jensen gave a jerky nod and gritted his teeth.

Then he brought his shaking arms around and reached down to work the zip ties off his legs with his uninjured right hand, while the other one came to rest lifelessly in his lap.

Grunting through the pain, Jensen managed to wiggle the hard Nylon down over the end of the chair’s legs, freeing his feet.

He took a deep breath through his nose and then lifted himself up on shaky legs, swaying dangerously on his feet as a sickening rush of nausea swept through his body.

He made a step towards Jeff and gasped when his knees buckled, barely catching himself in time to keep from crashing face-first into the backseat of the metal chair he’d been strapped down to.

The handcuffs that were now dangling from his uninjured right wrist clanked loudly with the metal rack of the chair he'd been sitting on and Jensen winced when the sound caused his headache to flare in intensity.

“Easy… easy, kid. Small steps, alright?” Jeff whispered, sounding alarmed.

Grabbing the backrest of the chair, Jensen turned the seat over so it was lying on the floor and then kicked off one of the seat’s legs with a few more-or-less well-aimed kicks to the rusty metal.

He bowed down to grab the chunk of heavy metal with his good hand and inspected the tip, where the frayed edges of the rust-brown material glinted dangerously in the shine of the light bulb.

Jensen ran a trembling finger over one the sharp tip of the broken metal and winced when it sliced into the outer layer of his skin.

He was just about to move towards Jeff when the sound of nearing footsteps caused both their heads to whirl around in surprise.

Jensen’s pulse kicked up even further, mind racing as he exchanged a panicked look with Jeff.

“Quick,” Jeff mouthed in warning, eyes wide with panic as he nodded towards the warehouse’s entrance.

Jensen curled his fingers around the cool metal and crossed over as far as his trembling legs would carry him.

Cold sweat curled down the base of his spine and the inside of his palms.

His lungs were burning with the rapid pants of air he took in as he took up a stance right next to the door and lifted the chair’s leg up over his shoulder, wielding it like a baseball bat.

He didn’t know who was on the other side of that metal door, didn’t even _want_ to know. 

It didn’t matter. Not anymore.

He could go for a non-threatening injury, hit the guy's legs or shatter his knee caps. There were quick and easy ways to dispose of someone without killing them in the process.

But this wasn't some naive bar fight, where the winners took off in a blaze of glory and the losers begrudgingly picked up the pieces after themselves. 

This was a life-or-death situation. A situation where Jensen would let someone live out of the goodness of his heart, only to get shot in the head by that very same person a minute later.

And he couldn't risk it. 

He just... _couldn't._

Lucian might have gotten him to a point where he had cried and begged; yelled out Jared’s name over and over like it was the only goddamn thing on the planet to give him comfort. 

But Lucian hadn’t _broken_ him.

This, however- what Jensen was about to do- he knew without the sliver of a doubt, would break him in a way no form of torture ever could.

Jensen held his breath, a single tear slipping from his eyes as the door was pulled open and someone stepped inside.

It was the fucker who’d fucking threatened him earlier. The one who'd said he was gonna come back for a second round, taking it out of Jensen 'in flesh'. 'Knocking him up'. 'Sending Jared a picture'. 

 _Good_ , Jensen thought bitterly, even as more tears slipped from his eyes.  _That makes things easier._

The guy's eyes widened when he stepped through the door and took in the scene, an empty chair on the floor and next to it, Jeff, just staring back at the fucker with a gleeful smirk on his face.

“What the fu—“ that was as far as the asshole got before Jensen moved forward and jammed the sharp end of the metal pole down into the guy’s back from behind.

 

 

They parked their bikes in an abandoned parking lot about a mile and a half from the address Leroy had given them and walked the rest of the way.

Jared had always believed that the best kind of weapon in a fight was the element of surprise and he wasn’t going to give that up easily.

As of right now, Lucian probably still thought Jared was arranging fucking paperwork for the trade.

_Yeah… fat chance, you sadistic motherfucker._

Jared would have earlier set his own fucking store on fire before he gave it up to the likes of Lucian and his fucking gang.

When the warehouse came into view, Jared’s brain kind of short-circuited.

His heart was suddenly lodged in his throat and he paled, curling his fingers around his gun so tight it sent a sharp pain through his knuckles.

“How are we gonna do this?” Genevieve’s voice pulled him back to the here and now.

Chris snorted. “We barge in, kill those motherfuckers in a hail of fucking bullets and get the hell outta there before the cops show. Same as fucking always.”

Except that, they had never really done this before… that they’d never had so much at stake.

“That plan is idiotic,” Chase hissed out low under his breath and shot a glower at Chris. “We go in there guns blazing and none of us will come back out alive.”

Jared intervened before things could go out of hand. “There are only five bikes in the lot. Chances are they are outnumbered. I don’t want anybody to open fire unless Jensen and Jeff are in the clear. They’re probably tied up and injured with no chance to take cover or protect themselves. This is supposed to be a rescue mission. Not a goddamn bloodbath.”

Chris looked a bit subdued when he answered, “There’s no way they won’t open fire if we just walk in through their fucking front door.”

“Which is why all of you are going to stay back while I walk in there alone.”

“What?” Steve barked out, sounding unnerved. “No fucking way! Are you fucking insane?”

“They’re going to kill you on the spot!” Chris chimed in, equally shocked by Jared’s reckless plan. “You can’t just walk in there empty-handed- no guns, no contract- no nothing!”

“This isn’t about the fucking store, Chris! This is about what happened between Jeff and Lucian all these years ago. It's about my mom’s death and about the fact that they fucking killed her. That’s my fucking father in there, or the closest thing I’ve ever had to one and Jensen, who I—“

Jared cut himself off just in time, eyes wide and blurred with tears of unspeakable pain as the words tapered off- sentence left half-finished in the tension-filled air between them.

He ran a shaky hand over his lips and closed his eyes, trying to gather his bearings.

“I’m gonna go in there and I’ll go in there alone,” Jared said slowly, deathly calm. His face was carved of stone, determination lining every single one of his features. “Once I’m in, Lucian will be focused on me. You guys take out whatever lackeys he’s got running patrol outside the warehouse and then come barging in once I give you the signal.”

“What fucking signal?” Gen asked, never one to run off half-cocked. Jared had always appreciated that about her character.

She was one of the most level-headed people he knew, never fazed by whatever danger or chaos they were dealing with. She could keep her cool even in the most unnerving of situations, grounding others around her with a sense of purpose and direction.

“Gunfire,” Jared explained, looking up into her eyes and seeing the realization there.

“How do we know it’s you who’s firing?” she asked, doubt lacing her words.

Jared shook his head minutely. “You don’t.”

There weren’t words for the situation they were in.

And quite frankly, Jared was thankful for that.

He let his gaze linger on his friends for a second longer, taking in their features, memorizing their strained smiles of sadness and encouragement and fear before he started walking towards the warehouse.

“Jay…” Chris’ voice held him back.

Jared closed his eyes and stopped in his tracks, not turning around to face the others out of fear of what they had to say.

“You better be the one firing that fucking gun, I swear to god.”

Jared swallowed and gave an imperceptible nod.

Lucian was going to die tonight.

And Jared was going to be the one to pull the trigger.

“Yeah,” his voice came out strong and unwavering as he steeled his resolve. “I will.”

 

 

Katie was many things, but not helpless.

She loved Jared, had never respected anybody’s authority as much as she had respected his, but what he had just done to her, forcing her to stay behind while everyone she loved was fighting a losing battle, was simply too much.

She had been trying to come up with a plan to help them without endangering them in the fucking process, had wrecked her brain for a way to lend support, even indirectly, when her thought process was suddenly interrupted by the rumble of an approaching car.

Her heart skipped a beat as she fumbled for her gun and pressed her back against the cool façade of the garage.

The car pulled up right in front of their store and it hadn’t even come to a complete halt yet when the door in the back seat was pulled open.

A red-haired woman with wide eyes and a panicked expression shot out of the back of the vehicle, making a bee-line for the store’s entrance and Katie let out a shuddering exhale, closing her eyes as relief swept through her like a goddamn tidal wave.

“Danni, hold on for a second—” a guy with wild dark hair barged after her, looking just as unhinged.

Finally, a second guy stepped from the driver’s seat, looking uneasy as he took a cursory glance around the deserted parking lot.

“Jensen’s car is still here…” the girl- Danni- noted in a near-hysteric voice and Katie felt a pang of sympathy for this total stranger based on the fact alone that she knew Jensen and cared about him.

“Maybe he’s still inside?”

There was hope in her voice and Katie felt sick at the prospect of crushing that hopefulness by telling her the bitter truth.

Deciding that they were safe, she tucked the gun away in the back of her skinny jeans and stepped around the corner of the building with her open palms splayed wide and stretched above her head in a non-threatening gesture.

“Jensen’s isn’t here,” she said, causing all three of them to whirl around in shocked surprise.

“Who are you?” the driver of the car- a tall guy with wavy brown hair- asked, sounding skeptical. “How do you know Jensen?”

“My name’s Katie. I work here.”

“Katie…” the girl repeated dully when something suddenly occurred to her. “Jensen mentioned you before, I remember your name.”

Katie’s heart clenched at the words. Something about the knowledge that Jensen had mentioned her to his friends, was oddly endearing, overwhelming her with a rush of emotion.

“Look, Katie,  Jensen isn’t answering his phone and we’re looking for him. Can you tell us where he is or—“ the driver stepped forward, looking mildly irritated at the way she meddled with their business by interrupting them.

“They took him,” Katie sniffed, not in the mood to beat around the bush. “The Reapers took him.”

“Oh god,” the girl choked out, wrapping fingers around her mouth and shaking her head as if in denial over what happened.

The two guys just continued to stare at her in shock for a moment longer, their faces completely drained of all color as they tried to comprehend what she had just told them.

“I-is he alright, I mean— what— what the fuck happened? Have you called the police?”

“Where is he now, Katie? Do you have an address— a specific location?” the guy with the long hair urged, voice shaking with his rising desperation.

“We can’t call the fucking cops,” Katie mumbled but the guy shook his head. “We can’t.”

He took a step forward; eyes wide and sparkling as he pulled his phone from his jacket pocket.

“Like hell, we can’t,” he hissed, punching a number into his cell.

Katie pulled her gun and aimed it at his head, causing the two others to gasp out in shock.

“Hang up. Right, the fuck now. Or I’m gonna pull that shiny piece of junk metal from your clammy hands and do it myself.”

The guy froze and they all held their breaths when the mechanic voice on the other end of the line started speaking, _‘You’ve reached 911. How can I help you?’_

“Listen—“ the guy apparently had a death wish or something, holding out a hand towards Katie as if to try and calm her down, while still clutching the phone in his other.

The police would only make things worse. They would not only end up messing up the rescue mission and getting people killed, but they would also make sure to lock those who got away with their lives away in a fucking prison cell. And that wasn’t something Katie wanted to live with.

“Hang up the call,” she clicked back the hammer of the gun, her aim never wavering. “I’m not going to ask again.”

_‘Sir? This is 911. Can you hear me?’_

“Tom, just do what she says!” the other guy urged and Katie stored the name away in her head for reference.

The guy- Tom- ended the call with a chagrined look on his face and held both his arms up in surrender. “I’m not trying to rat you or your friends out. We only want to help you, alright?”

“You’re not helping,” Katie growled out, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

She should have known these college kids would mean trouble.

“Jensen called me a few hours ago, asking me to clear all of your criminal records… he did it so you could get the police involved without having to fear the consequences of whatever previous delinquencies you guys got involved with.”

Katie’s mind was racing as she tried to keep up with what he as saying.

“I call bullshit,” she spat, unconvinced. “Jensen would have talked to us first.”

“There was no time, look—“ Tom took another step forward and Katie lifted the gun so it was aimed at his head. He looked rather calm and collected for a college kid who was about to get his brains blown out. “Your name was on the list. Katie Cassidy, right? You’re 23 years old, born in North Dakota. You only had a single felony listed in your records and that was a bar brawl that got out of hand a few years ago.”

Katie’s eyes widened and she paled. Slowly, she lowered her gun, heart threatening to jump right out of her chest at the rate it was going. “How do you—“

“I told you,” Tom said, sounding impatient.

She swallowed and lowered her gun, allowing her fingers to shake and quiver now that they were no longer aimed at the guy in front of her. “You really cleared all of our records?”

“Yes,” Tom affirmed.

Katie lifted a hand to her head and fisted a handful of hair with her fingers. 

They didn't _do_ cops. 

Cops asked too many questions. They meant trouble, the kind of trouble they couldn't afford. 

Jared would kill her if he found out about this. 

But Jared wasn't here. 

 

The first thing Jared noticed when he stepped inside the warehouse was the blood.

It was covering the floor and spattered across the walls.

It lay heavy on his tongue as he breathed.

The second thing he noticed was Jeffrey, tied to a chair in the center of the room and hanging lifelessly in his bonds, blood dripping heavily from his chin and slack mouth.

Jared’s heart lodged in his throat at the sight, breath trapped in his lungs and eyes burning.

From the distance, it was impossible to tell whether Jeff was still alive or not, but Jared absolutely couldn’t allow himself to assume the worst.

Not in this case.

Jeff couldn’t be dead.

He was just beaten up badly. Knocked unconscious, maybe. But not dead.

Jared swallowed down the gut-gripping fear for Jeff’s life and forced himself to focus on other things for the moment, like the fact that there was a dead body right next to the fucking door he’d just walked through.

The guy- Jared had never seen him before, but he was obviously one of Lucian’s lackeys- had a fucking two-feet-long chunk of metal sticking out of his back and was lying face down in a puddle of his own blood, unmoving.

Jared stepped over the corpse and that was about as far as he got when the sound of a familiar voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Jay, how lovely of you to finally join us,” Lucian stepped into the flickering shine of the light bulb and Jared’s blood ran cold.

Right there, in the forceful grip of Lucian’s brawny arms, with the muzzle of a gun pressed against his temple, was Jensen.

Jensen, whose face was barely recognizable with the blood running down his left side and the huge cut right above his eyebrow. He looked like his nose might have been broken and his lips were swollen too, not like they were after a passionate make-out session, but like they had just taken a severe beating, blood still oozing from the cracked skin and clotted where the wounds had scabbed over and started to heal.

The shirt on his chest was torn in several places and the skin that was exposed in between the tears in the fabric showed various vicious looking cigarette burns.

Jensen’s left hand looked _off_ somehow, almost mangled- the bone of his thumb sticking out at an angle that made Jared realize, with stomach-dropping clarity, what Jensen had done to try and escape from his bonds. 

“ _Jen_ ,” Jared moved forward on his own accord, but Lucian didn’t let him get very far.

“Ah-ah-ah. Not so fast, loverboy,” the older man warned in a mocking voice, before gruffly yanking Jensen’s head back in what could clearly be described as a power move. “Wouldn’t want for your pretty little boyfriend to get shot in the head, now, would we?”

Jared barely heard the whimper Jensen tried to bite back, but he definitely saw the tears on his face, painting clear tracks into the blood and grime-covered skin and his heart broke at the sight of the fear reflected in Jensen's eyes.

“Let him go,” Jared demanded, voice firm despite the way his heart wouldn’t stop thudding frantically inside his chest. “You’ve got me and you’ve got Jeff, that should settle the fucking bill, right? Just let Jensen go.”

It was a weak attempt as far as rescue missions went, but Jared had to at least try.

“Your pretty little plaything here, _Jensen_ ,” Lucian spat the name out as if the very sound of it disgusted him. “Thought he was being real smart, trying to escape. He broke his thumb to slip out of the cuffs, you know?”

Jared’s heart thudded to a halt when he realized what Lucian was about to do, but by then it was already too late.

With one hand still pressing the gun to Jensen's head, Lucian grabbed Jensen’s mangled hand and pressed his thumb down hard against the younger man's mangled fingers, grinding down against the broken bone.

Jensen let out a broken wail of agony, his entire face crumpling in pain and Jared felt like somebody had just stabbed him with a rusty knife.

The sound and sight of Jensen’s pain were his kryptonite, worse than anything Jared had ever been forced to endure in his life- worse even than the ache and emptiness he’d felt after his mother’s death.

It was his worst nightmare come to life; Jensen at the mercy of this sadist, hurt and helpless and broken in ways that Jared would probably never be able to completely fix.

Before he could think about it, Jared had made another instinctive step forward- the urge to be close to Jensen- to do anything at all to take the pain and discomfort away was overwhelming his senses- clouding his judgment and rationality.

“I’d stop if I was you,” Lucian advised, almost nonchalantly over the sound of Jensen’s broken-off sobs and hitched breaths. He let go of the kid’s hand and Jensen all but sagged against Lucian’s chest, like a goddamn puppet with its strings cut off, tears still streaming incessantly down his swollen and bruised cheeks. “You see, your boy, here, didn’t just try to scram, but he also managed to kill one of my men in the process. Slammed a chunk of metal into his back.”

Jared swallowed, eyes seeking out Jensen’s tear-filled gaze, trying to assure him that it was okay. That it was all going to be okay.

That it was out of self-defense.

That he hadn’t been left with another choice.

That he was doing good, so fucking good in this terrible, devastating life-or-death-situation.

_It’s okay, it’s alright. I’m gonna get you out of here. None of this matters. I'm not going to think any less of you for what you've been forced to endure, forced to do._

But deep down Jared knew, knew without the flicker of a doubt, that Jensen wouldn’t see it that way. That he would be irrevocably- _inconsolably_ \- shaken by the events of tonight, shattered by the guilt of what he had done.

And maybe it was because of this realization, that Jared understood that no matter what- no matter if they both made it out of this hell alive, or not- things would never be as they were after this.

The history they shared was now no longer innocent.

The bond that connected them was now tainted by blood and tears.

And their intrinsic, bone-deep connection was jarred by the horrors of their own actions.

“Whoever thought you were the dysfunctional one in your little fairytale romance clearly hasn’t seen college boy with a sharp object in his hands,” Lucian whistled low under his breath, sounding impressed and way too amused by the fact that one of his own men had been killed by a rookie.

Jensen flinched, looking impossibly small and vulnerable in Lucian’s bruising grip.

Fresh tears started leaking from beneath his lashes and Jared’s fingers curled into fists.

Lucian nuzzled close to Jensen’s ear, the gesture a cruel mockery of affection, even as his eyes never strayed from Jared’s face. “He had a family, you know? Cute little girl with piggy tails. Guess she’ll grow up without a daddy now.“

Jensen winced, a violent shiver wrecking his spine and Jared couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Jensen, look at me,” he demanded in a sharp tone, leaving no room for protest or discussion. He wasn’t going to just sit by and do nothing while that sick fuck talked Jensen into a self-induced bout of guilt.

Jensen shuddered but lifted his eyes to meet Jared’s gaze across the distance.

“Whatever you’re thinking right now, you probably did the girl a fucking favor.”

“I gotta say,” Lucian clicked his tongue and Jared shot him a glower. “You’re warming my heart here, Jared. Trying to alleviate your lover’s guilty conscience before he gets his brains blown out? How very saintly.”

“What the fuck do you want?” Jared asked, voice wavering.

“I thought I’d made that apparent during our little chat on the phone, earlier, but maybe I wasn’t expressing myself clearly enough.”

Jared snorted. “The fucking store? Are we seriously going to keep pretending that that’s what this is about? You’re making what- three hundred, four hundred grand a year? What the fuck would you need a ramshackle garage and a bike store for?”

“Maybe I just want to have what’s yours,” Lucian said with a dark glimmer in his eyes and skimmed a leather-gloved finger over the smooth cut of Jensen’s quivering jawline. “And crush it.”

He tightened his fingers and Jensen let out a choked-off sound.

“Alright,” Jared snapped, the words tumbling past his lips before he could stop them. He shot a perfunctory glance over at Jeff, who was still seemingly passed out in the chair before returning his attention to Lucian. “Alright. Whatever you want. I’ll give it to you. Just don't hurt him.”

“And then what?” Lucian smirked. “Your pathetic little squad comes barging in the front door to save the damsel in distress? Is that how you think this whole thing will play out?”

Jared blinked in surprise and Lucian’s smile grew wider. “You didn’t seriously think it was going to be that easy, right?”

The door to the warehouse was pushed open and Jared’s expression dropped, every remaining bit of color draining from his face when he saw Ty coming in the front door, wearing a Reaper gang jacket.

He could feel fury clawing its way through his stomach and up his throat like an underground beast, wild and unnerved and impossible to hold.

Ty had ratted him out.

That motherfucking asshole had set them up.

“Surprised?” Ty mocked with a grin on his face and it took every goddamn ounce of composure Jared still possessed to keep from bounding over there and filling that bastard so full of fucking lead he was shitting bullets.

“Ty,” Jared drawled out the name, rolling it on his tongue like it was a fine wine, while he imagined all the things he was going to do with that treacherous piece of shit before slitting his throat.

He dipped his head forward, dark strands falling into his eyes as he slowly lifted a murderous glare up to fixate Ty where he was standing. “I hope you’ve said your motherfucking prayers last night, cause there’s no fucking way you’re gonna leave this warehouse alive.”

Jared’s voice was pure intimidation, tone dripping with ice cold fury.

Ty smiled his way through the threat, but there was an unmistakable flicker of panic in his gaze.

_Good._

Motherfucker came right next on his list after Jared was done with Lucian.

“You see,” Lucian started and shuffled forward, roughly dragging Jensen along with him, all the while keeping his gun trained unwaveringly on the blonde’s forehead. “I’ve been trying to come up with a suitable way of getting rid of you once and for all and it will please you to hear that I’ve come up with a solution.”

Lucian roughly shoved Jensen forward, causing the man to stumble and nearly fall over the metal chair that had been conveniently placed in front of a sturdy iron table in the center of the warehouse. “Sit your ass down.”

He looked up at Jared and pointed at the other chair with his gun. “You too.”

Jared didn’t hesitate. He stiffly walked over and sat down at the table opposite from Jensen.

Whatever this was, it couldn’t be good.

Lucian wordlessly dropped a gun on the coffee table between both of them and Jared’s gut clenched, an ice cold shudder wrecking his spine.

“Have you ever played Russian Roulette?” Lucian asked, taking a stance in front of the table.

Jensen let out a sound, trapped somewhere between a sob and a whimper and Jared reached out instinctively to cross the length of the table and wrap his fingers around the blonde’s hand.

Jensen sucked in a sharp breath, eyes overflowing as he lifted his panic-filled gaze up to look into Jared’s eyes. “ _Jay._ ”

It was the first thing Jensen had said since Jared had walked in the warehouse.

Jared squeezed Jensen’s hand as hard as he could.

“Hey,” Jaredwhispered, voice so low that he couldn't be sure Jensen was even hearing him. He tried for a smile, but it wavered and died. “You trust me?”

It had become their mantra in the past month.

Jensen bit his lower lip and gave a jerky nod in response. “Y-yeah.”

_You know I do._

_Always._

Their moment was broken by the unmistakable click of a safety being released.

Jared pulled his hand out of Jensen’s with a last reassuring squeeze.

“I’m gonna let that lovely little gesture slide, just because I like you so much,” Lucian teased before nuzzling the mouth of his gun into the back of Jensen’s head, cool metal pressing hard against the younger man’s skull in unspoken warning. “Now, have you ever played Russian Roulette before or not?”

Jared put every ounce of hatred he possessed into his gaze as he pinned Lucian with a death scowl.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Lucian deducted from the boys’ reaction. “Well, you see it’s a funny little game inherited from the Eastern European culture. It’s quite simple if you think about it, a game of choice, really.”

Lucian snatched the revolver back up and opened the latch, displaying it to them.

There was just one bullet in the chamber.

The rest of the cylinder was empty- empty holders staring back at them like fucking black holes.

“First, you fill the revolver with one round,” Jared swallowed when Lucian spun the cylinder. “Then you spin it a few times.”

You could have heard a fucking pin drop in the silence as they sat and listened to the sound of the metallic spinning and clicking of chambers echoing through the room.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the gun clicked into place. 

Jensen flinched at the sound. 

“And last but not least,” Lucian smiled as he slammed the gun back down on the table top between them with a resounding echo. “You place it against your own head and pull the trigger.”

Jared felt cold sweat pool at the base of his spine.

He had known that Lucian was a sick bastard.

Hadn’t dared to hope he was going to make it out of this one alive.

But this was worse than any form of torture he could have come up with in his wildest nightmares.

“I’ll take the bullet right now,” Jared said evenly, eyes drilling holes into Lucian’s face. “Fair and square. No game, no nothing. I’ll pull the fucking trigger myself if you want.”

_Just let Jensen go._

Jared didn’t actually have to voice that last part.

Whatever mix of fear and bitter resignation had melded together in Jensen’s features, changed into raw panic as Jared's words began to sink in.

His green eyes flashed in shell-shocked fear and denial at the deal Jared had just proposed to Lucian.

“ _No,_ ” he blurted out, voice thick with emotion as he shook his head. “Jared, _no,_ _please_ —“

Jared ignored him, even as his heart got shredded in his chest.

“What the fuck do you want to hear?” Jared snapped, anger and desperation bleeding in his tone. “Do you want me to beg?”

Lucian tilted his head to the side suggestively, as if he needed to think about it before answering.

“Fine,” Jared spat out because his pride was strong, but it wasn’t worth Jensen’s life.

“Do whatever you fucking want to me, just—“ Jared cut himself off and looked over at Jensen once more, drinking in the depth of the green of his eyes, connecting with him on a level that was beyond words or reason. “Just please- _please_ don’t make him do this.”

Because there were only two ways how this so called ‘game’ could end.

And both of them would end up killing Jensen- either physically or psychologically, which really wasn't something Jared could let happen.

Lucian leaned in with a cruel little twist of his lips and Jared knew all hope was lost.  “Why, you beg so prettily, Jared. I could get used to that tone of voice, you know? But I think, I’d rather watch you two shoot each other.”

Jared’s eyes went dark with murderous intent as he curled his fingers into fists.

“Each other?” Jensen repeated in a shaky whisper, confusion clouding his tear-filled gaze.

It took a moment for Jared to catch on with the program, but by then Lucian had already grabbed the revolver and forced it into Jensen’s shaking fingers.

“I took the liberty to modify the rules a bit,” he grinned and stepped behind Jensen, lifting his uninjured right arm to stretch out in front of him, the gun aimed straight for Jared’s chest.

“ _No_ ,” Jensen shook his head desperately, trying to pull his hand back, but Lucian was holding it in place, forcing Jensen’s quivering finger to wrap around the trigger. "No, _please_ don't—"

Jared’s eyes clung to Jensen like a dying man to a lifeline.

He tried to take in every detail of the other man’s face, let his gaze wander over the blood that darkened the kid’s ashen skin and washed into his bottle-green eyes.

He looked at the swollen and abused skin around Jensen’s left cheekbone, the bone clearly splintered beneath the softer cartilage and flesh.

Jared stared at Jensen until his eyes watered and his heart ceased beating in his chest.

“What’s the likelihood of that bullet being in the chamber right now?” Lucian asked against the side of Jensen’s ear.

Jensen blinked tears from his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut. “O-one in six.”

“One in six…” Lucian repeated slowly, drawing out the words. “Those aren’t bad chances, right?”

“Jay.”

“It’s okay,” Jared said, proud of the way his voice didn’t waver.

"I can't do this— Jared, I _can't_ — I don't—"

Jensen was panicking. Tears were streaming down his eyes incessantly, his shoulders and hands were shaking so hard it was a wonder Lucian still managed to keep that gun trained steadily at Jared's chest. 

He was unraveling at the seams. About to pull the trigger of a gun that was aimed straight at Jared's heart. 

“It’s okay… just close your eyes, alright? Whatever happens, it's not your fault."

_I forgive you. No matter what._

He offered up a watery smile, trying to put all of his heart into that single expression, trying to convey everything he never got around to tell Jensen out loud in that one gesture.

Lucian curled his fingers around Jensen’s and pulled the trigger.

Jared’s heart _stopped_.

And then continued beating to the sound of a gun dry-firing.

There was a dull metallic click and then Jensen continued to emptily stare into Jared’s eyes for a few agonizing seconds, while his gaze filled with speechless disbelief.

Then his expression fell- crumbled _-_  at the realization that nothing had happened, that Jared was still whole and safe and right fucking there in front of him.

The gun fell lifelessly from his shaking fingers as Jensen slumped in his chair and lifted them up to bury his face in his hands.

He let out a sound that could only be described as a keening- broken and long and filled with so much raw, vulnerable, hurt- that it made Jared sick to his stomach- wanting nothing more than to lean over the fucking table and yank Jensen hard against his chest- hold him tight and whisper sweet nothings into his ear and take all that goddamn pain away until he was whole again. 

But there was a gun pointed at the back of Jensen's head and one aimed at his own chest and Jared couldn't hold Jensen any more than he could walk out of this goddamn warehouse unscathed. 

“Your turn,” Lucian grinned, tapping the tabletop with his knuckles. “Now, I’ve never really been acing my math tests, but that would make your chances for the second turn one over five, right?”

Jared shifted his jaw, tension pulsating hot and heavy through his veins and radiating through his entire body.

Lucian slid the revolver across the table with an audible screech and smiled.

“You got any last words before you pull the trigger? Maybe a confession about your undying love for one another?”

Lucian let out a dark chuckle and Ty- that fucking idiot- even went as far as to arch his back a little as he did that full-body laugh of his- guffawing dark laughter rumbling through his throat.

It was all Jared needed.

Just that one moment of distraction.

Ty's aim slipped a little and he had his eyes squeezed shut in laughter and Jared knocked back his chair so fast, the guy never saw it coming.

The metal frame of the chair’s backrest slammed into Ty’s side and Jared knocked the gun from his hands before he could even realize what was going on.

Jared whirled around and blasted three well-aimed shots to the center of Lucian’s chest in rapid-fire succession. Lucian jerked back, a shocked expression on his face and eyes dark and unforgiving like the void of space as they widened in disbelief.

With a growl, Jared lunged across the table and tackled Lucian around the middle, wrestling him bodily to the ground.

He twisted the gun around so that the barrel was clutched in his hands and grabbed Lucian by the throat before slamming the butt of the semi down hard into the other man’s face. 

There was the very distinctive crunch of bones and flesh but Jared just kept going, repeating the motion over and over again until Lucian’s face was no longer recognizable.

His vision was clouded by a red haze, his ears were ringing with static.

His lungs burned with liquid fire.

Jared kept going until his muscles ached and his gaze was too blurred to make anything out.

He had spent so much of his life hating this man- hunting him- seeking him out for the sole purpose of destroying him.

Lucian had done terrible things to his mother even when she was still alive- had _killed_ her in cold blood and tried to do the same to Jeff- and Jared would spend the rest of his life hating him for it, but this right now- this act of utter physical violence- of unthinking, irrational fury- had nothing to do with his mother and everything to do with _Jensen_.

Lucian had tortured Jensen in front of his eyes- had done things to him- _said_ things to him that would never completely go away again.

And that’s why he needed to die and _die bloody._

Jared sniffed and scrubbed the back of his hand- the one that wasn’t drenched in blood- over his lips.

He straightened himself up on shaky legs, not even sparing Lucian’s corpse a second glance.

And then, just as he was about to turn towards Jensen to finally,  _finally,_  take care of the younger man, to protect and shelter him from all of this.

To get him the hell out of here and make sure he was safe.

Just in that second, a final shot rang through the warehouse, causing Jared’s heart to lodge in his throat with an instinctive overwhelming feeling of _wrongness_ that turned his stomach and clouded his mind.

He turned around in time to see Ty and Jensen wrestling on the ground, four hands clutched around the revolver that had just fired off its only bullet.

Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion as if the entire world had slowed down just to make the reality of what had happened more painful in its detailed finality. 

The sound of the gunshot echoed through the storage hall and something in Jensen's expression shifted from dull shock to pain to agonized confusion.

Jensen let out a startled little gasp of pain and reality crashed down on him like a fucking tidal wave.

_No._

_Nonononono..._

Jared propelled his body forward and knocked Ty out with a single sucker punch to the back of his head. 

Ty dropped like a bag of fucking stones and Jared didn't wait to hear the dull thud of his body hitting the ground before he started forward.

He was at Jensen’s side on the blood-spattered ground the next fucking second, heart threatening to punch a hole right through his fucking chest.

He didn't even feel the way the blood grew cold in his body, the way it drained from his face and froze in his veins as he fumbled to lift Jensen up into his lap.

“Jensen! Jen. Hey, hey, hey... Let me look at you,” Jared gathered Jensen up in his arms and rolled him over with gentle care, trying to get a better look at the bullet wound in his abdomen. "Here we go, let me see."

Jensen flinched in his grasp and let out a pitiful groan when Jared’s quivering fingers found the shot wound just beneath his belly button. "Shh, alright. It's alright. I'm here now, I've got you."

Blood was quelling from his stomach, thick and oily as it quickly saturated whatever was left of Jensen’s shirt. 

“Oh god,” Jared choked out, as the seriousness of the situation dawned on him. He shrugged out of his shirt and bunched the fabric up into a ball before pressing it down hard against the bullet wound to staunch the worst of the blood flow.

“J-Jared—“

“Hey, shhh… it’s okay. It’s alright, don’t talk, okay?”

Jared could only stare into Jensen’s eyes, glazed over with unimaginable pain, as he wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.

He coughed and more blood trickled out. “Jay…"

Jared choked on a sob.  His own pain was a distant, dull buzz in his ears. His split knuckles were numb and coated in blood- whether it was his own or somebody else’s he couldn’t tell.

Jared stroked a thumb over the side of Jensen’s face that wasn’t broken and watched as the younger man’s pain-filled eyes overflowed.

“Don’t you dare, you hear me? Don’t you fucking dare, Jensen! Not like this. You don't get to check out on me like this, you fucking hear me?“

Jensen’s shaking hand reached up to cup Jared’s cheek with tremendous effort.

"M sorry," he husked, voice brittle and eyes misty, smearing blood across Jared's face in a ghostly caress. 

He was saying goodbye, Jared realized in the darkest corner of his mind. 

Jared reached up to thread their bloodied fingers together, feeling dead inside at the thought that Jensen could be leaving him. That Jensen could die, right here, on that dirty warehouse floor. 

Jensen smiled weakly up at him, breath catching in his throat as his girly lashes fluttered and threatened to close. 

 

"K-kiss me?" he whispered, eyes bright with pain and something else- resignation maybe... Jared didn't know. He wasn't sure he even wanted to know because Jensen had just asked for a kiss- a kiss that might as well be their last. A kiss where he would close his eyes and relax and let the pain drag him under- into an abyss so dark and vast and devastating that Jared wasn't sure he'd ever be able to get Jensen out of it again. 

And Jared should have teased Jensen mercilessly for being such a damn sap. 

For doing something so ridiculously cheesy. 

If it hadn't been the wish of a dying man. 

If it wasn't Jensen _needing_ him like he had never needed him before. 

Needing to know that Jared was real and not just a dream, needing to know that their love was real and not just a coping mechanism or an illusion or a goddamn phase they would have eventually grown out of.

Needing one last memory that wasn't coated in blood or anger or mindless fury.

One memory of them together, simply together, with their bodies and souls and hearts intertwined. 

" _Please._ "

Jared didn't tease. He didn't smile or make a joke or retort in any other way because that wasn't what Jensen needed right now.

That wasn't what he was asking for. 

Instead, he leaned down to brush his mouth against Jensen's in the gentlest possible way, moving them slowly.

He felt his own heart splinter into a million pieces as his lips pressed against Jensen's, causing a soft gasp to echo between them.

He felt Jensen's lips mend the broken pieces of his shattered heart as bitter reality sank in and his body grew cold.

He was crying by the time they finally broke contact, the metallic taste of Jensen's blood heavy on his tongue, Jensen's _life_ clinging to his lips. 

Their fingers were still interlaced, when the door to the warehouse was suddenly yanked wide open, revealing Steve and Chris with wild hair and wild eyes, looking like they’d just come out of a car crash with an eighteen wheeler. 

Jared wanted to shake them and hit them in the fucking face for taking so long, for not having been here sooner.

But from the looks of it, they had had their own fight to conquer.

Genevieve and Chase rushed into the warehouse after Chris and Steve, weapons drawn as their eyes scanned the demolished warehouse. It was a goddamn car wreck.

Overturned tables and broken chairs littered the dark storage hall.

A couple of guns lay amidst the fragmented furniture and blood spattered nearly every surface in the room.

“Shit," Chris eloquently commented as he took in the scene. He was holding his left arm, clutching it hard while dark crimson seeped from between his pale fingers. 

“Jay?” Steve asked, voice near-frantic with fear. "Jared!"

Jensen drew a shuddering breath in Jared’s arms, face scrunched up in unspeakable agony as he clutched a fistful of Jared’s T-shirt.

Through a haze of tears and sorrow and pain, Jared turned towards his friends.

“Call an ambulance!” Jared beckoned, voice hoarse with grief and desperation.

He didn’t care about hospitals or the police or fucking jail, for that matter.

He didn’t care about any of it.

He’d gladly take a lifetime in prison over a single day spent in a world without Jensen.

"Don't leave," Jensen whispered, voice barely audible in the hectic commotion around them. "Don't."

“I won't,” Jared promised through his own tears, eyes never once straying from Jensen’s as he tightened his hold on Jensen's fingers. "I'm right here."

It took a moment to realize that the steady background noise that continued to grow louder and louder as it approached from the distance was the wail of a siren.

Jared didn’t take his eyes off of Jensen’s when Steve and Genevieve crashed down on the floor beside him or when the paramedics came crashing through the door.

He didn't so much as flinch when they started firing frantic questions and orders at his head or when they moved in with their guns drawn, shouting at him to raise his hands above his head. 

It took five of them to restrain him.

He fought tooth and nails when they pried his blood-slick fingers from Jensen’s clammy ones.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You most definitely are allowed to hate me forever and always after this. Jensen is definitely gonna come out of this thing with emotional/psychological baggage. I know it looks bad for them. But rest assured that these boys will get through all of this together. They'll come out of this stronger than before, it might just take a while for them to get there. That being said, I really hope you enjoyed this one. HUGE thanks goes out to my beta TheBoys!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for physical violence, bad language heartbreak, drama and more heartbreak. Don't say I didn't warn you! ;)

** **

** **

**Open Road  
Chapter 19**

The air in the interrogation room was viscous with tension.

Special Agent K. Wilkins marched through into the doorway with his usual air of imposing authority.

Like black wings, his duster coat fluttered from the wind emitted by his hurried steps.

He let the sound of his footsteps precede him and took up a stance in the dead center of the room, squared shoulders and daunting expression. 

“Your shift’s over. Go get yourself some coffee.”

Wilkins’ didn’t take his eyes off of the suspect, even as he addressed the guard that stood dutifully by the door, Glock clutched so tightly in his hands his knuckles had turned a sickening shade of white. 

It took a moment for the words to register in the young officer’s brain. “S-sir?”

“You deaf or something?” Wilkin’s voice cut through the oxygen-deprived air like a knife cutting butter. “Get the hell out of here.”

“Sir, with all due respect, the jurisdiction says I can’t leave you alone with a suspect.“

Wilkins tilted his head to the side and fished a silver cigarette case out of his coat pocket.

He clamped one between his lips and after a second’s hesitation held the silver case out to Padalecki in a silent offering.

The guy’s face was mostly covered by sweat-soaked strands of dark hair, but even in the dark lighting of the room, it was easy to make out the spatter of crusted blood on his nose and lips.

The dried trail of tears that had painted clean tracks into his grime-covered skin.

He hadn’t said a single word since they’d brought him in.

Correction.

He hadn’t said a single word of _relevance_ since they’d brought him.

Still looking down unblinkingly at Jared, Wilkins shrugged at the lack of response and flicked his case shut again, before lighting up the cigarette between his lips.

“You know,” he breathed out a cloud of smoke, enjoying the lingering taste of tobacco on his tongue. “I really hate it when people say ‘with all due respect’ because it inevitably precedes a disrespectful remark. Let me give you an example.”

Wilkins rubbed his jaw, pretending to be deeply in thought before he turned around to look the young officer that had been forced to stand guard dead in the eyes.

“With all due respect, officer, this matter falls under whatever fucking jurisdiction I say it does. Now get the hell out of here before I make you leave.”

A flicker of incredulity crossed the guy’s features, but then he seemed to come to his senses and whatever protest he wanted to utter died on his lips. “I’ll just... let me know if you need me, Sir.”

“ _Agent_ ,” Wilkins corrected with a sharp bite to his tone because he wasn’t the guy’s fucking father, he was superior and he was going to demand the level of respect that position earned him. “Actually, make that Special Agent, because it makes me feel real special.”

The guy had the good grace to blush and stammer out an apology before he rushed out into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind him, leaving Wilkins alone with their perp.

The deafening silence that followed in his wake was almost soothing.

“You’re not the talkative type, huh?” he stabbed his half-finished cigarette out on an ashtray and shrugged out of his coat.

“That’s alright. I’m not much of a talker myself. I’ve always found words a bit petty if you know what I mean.”

Wilkins walked over to the door and locked it.

Then he turned around and loosened his tie with a practiced jerk and the familiar sense of fatigue that accompanied the motion.

He had gotten little rest lately, his head filled with too many thoughts, each one of them a robber of sleep. But the case that had popped up on his desk today was a welcome distraction.

“In your situation, however,” Wilkins jerked his head to the side and let out an impressed whistle. “I mean three dead bodies and your fingerprints all over the crime weapon. I guess I don’t need to point out what kind of charges you’re facing, here, without a testimony.”

Wilkins sat down on the hard metal chair across from Jared and slammed a thick folder down on the table between them.

Jared didn’t even flinch, he just continued to stare at a spot in the distance, eyes filled with a dark emptiness that secretly made Wilkins think the guy must have lost his marbles during his time in that warehouse.

Wouldn’t be the first guy to lose his grip on reality after a job gone sideways…

Wilkins casually flipped through the file, more for show than for lack of information.

He’d done his homework, knew all the facts by heart after hours of staring at the pictures and reading up on the case.

The file was filled with crime scene photos, a list of names and brief descriptions of the victims and a few very vacuous hospital reports that have been issued out of sheer legal obligation and didn’t contain much detail on the injured vics, yet.

They would receive more details once the case was on trial as they'd have to wait until the witnesses took the stand, but for now, they relied on whatever information they could squeeze out of these fuckers during the interrogation.

So far they’d come up empty.

Five hours of non-stop questioning and neither one of the suspects had offered up more than snide comments, insults or threats.

“How about we start off with Mr. Lakefield- I assume you know him by the name of ‘Lucian’?”

_Lucian Lakefield. Age 52. Found dead on the scene. Three shot wounds to the center of his chest and an unrecognizable, mangled mess of flesh and bones where his face once used to be._

He had been shot with his own gun.

Jared’s fingerprints all over the handle and the barrel of the gun were as good as a straight-forward confession when it came to a court. That alone would send him straight to prison.

The question was why he did it the way he did.

Now Wilkins didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but he could imagine that that twenty-one-year-old kid- the one with the pretty smile and the bright green eyes could have had something to do with it.

Granted, Jared didn’t exactly look the type, but if the fact that he had clung to the boy with everything he’d still had left inside, that he’d broken two police officers’ noses and collapsed one of the paramedic’s airways in an attempt to fight them all off had anything to say at all, Wilkins was going to assume that Jared was rooting for the other team.

“Nothing?” Wilkins asked with a disapproving click of his tongue. “What about George Wiant? That name ring a bell with you?”

_George P. Wiant, 38, also found dead on the scene with a piece of sharp metal sticking out of his back._

They had found some smudged DNA on the chair leg that had been used to kill the guy, but forensics hadn’t been able to identify who it belonged to, yet.

They’d have to wait until all the vics were done with their DNA probes to be sure.

“What about Mark Sheppard? He works at your store ‘Black Legion Customs, is that correct?”

_Mark A. Sheppard, 52. Found dead in a puddle of his own blood behind the warehouse. GSW to the center of his forehead. Coroner declared the time of death 1:22 AM._

Which happened to be only seconds after the killing of Lakefield.

Which meant Jared couldn’t have done it because, at that time, he was most likely busy bashing Lakefield’s head into a bloody, unrecognizable pulp.

“What about Olson, Carlson, Cortese, Kane and Crawford? These are all people you’re working with, Jared. It would be an odd coincidence for all of them to be at the same spot by sheer coincidence, wouldn’t it?”

_Ty Olsson, 42. Brought to the hospital with a laceration to the head and a heavy concussion._

_Jeffrey Dean Morgan, 50.  Sustained severe injuries through beatings and various other forms of physical torture._ He hadn’t been responsive when they had found him at the scene.

There was more about the rest of them, of course, but Wilkins chose to skip that part and get down to the weak spot, the irrevocable sore thumb in the midst of the whole scene:

_Jensen Ross Ackles, 21._

_Born and raised in Richardson. Youngest High School Graduate to pass the Independent School District’s dual credit program with gubernatorial honors and a total of three associate degrees._

_Voluntary work at the children’s clinic and four different nursing homes. Head of the Science National Honors Society and the Mu Alpha Theta: Math Honor Club._

_Four times in a row winner of the National History Bee as well as co-founder of the International Science and Engineering Fair._

_Valedictorian._

_Senior lacrosse attacker with the highest number of goals ever scored in one season._

The list went on and on and on…

Wilkins looked down at two photographs, one taken right out of the Harvard yearbook, with Jensen smiling into the camera (he was handsome, as far as guys went, with bright green eyes and specks of blonde in his light brown hair), the other one of his face so swollen and bloodied that it was no longer recognizable.

Kid had a list of injuries so long and colorful they put an airplane crash survivors to shame…

Lacerations, cigarette burns, a total of five broken ribs, a fractured nose, cracked cheekbone and a bullet to the guts that caused some serious damage to his internal organs, nicked his spleen, resulted in hemorrhaging, yadda yadda yadda…

Didn’t take a doctor to see that the boy’s chances of survival were close to zero.

Fucking pity, too, seeing as how he was close to finishing Harvard med school at the top of his class, with distinction and honors and fucking flying colors.

If only he hadn’t picked the wrong type of friends.

“Anyone offer you anything to drink since you’ve been here?” Wilkins asked with a sigh as he stared at Jared, who hadn’t so much as acknowledged his presence since he arrived.

At this point, he didn’t really expect to get an answer out of Padalecki.

Saying he looked like death warmed over would have been a fucking compliment.

The guy was broken beyond repair, shattered really, robbed of whatever duct tape and glue had been necessary to hold the broken shards of his mind together.

Wilkins looked at Padalecki and saw a man lost at sea, struggling to keep himself afloat in the black maelstrom of his own miserable existence, in the devouring pool of his own loss, starving to regain some kind of footing, some reason to live.

Yeah, Wilkins knew the kind of emptiness in Jared’s expression.

The kind of all-consuming, raw, grief that swallowed you whole and spit you out as a shell of the man you once used to be.

He had been down that particular hellish version of the rabbit hole himself and he didn’t envy the man that sat in front of him, for the road ahead of him was long and riddled with guilt and self-blame. And eventually, bitter resignation.

Jared might not look the type, what with the six-foot-four-frame and the tattoos that covered nearly every inch of skin?

But one thing was for sure.

Jared had killed that fucking drug dealing piece of shit, Lakefield, with his bare hands.

He’d done it out of love for the college kid, probably in self-defense or, and that was far more reasonable, as some form of retribution for the torture Jensen had suffered at the hands of Lucian and his little biker gang.

And it was exactly that conclusion that made Wilkins realize, with a sick sense of cruel morbidity, that there would be only one way to break through Jared’s trance-like state of muteness.

He grabbed a glass and filled it with water before putting it down on the table next to Jared.

“Drink.”

Jared shifted his jaw and lifted his head slowly, cheeks streaked with new and old tears.

When his eyes met Wilkins’ gaze, his features absolutely expressionless, the agent felt a heavy weight settle on his chest.

Before Wilkins could do anything to prevent it from happening, Jared swiped the full glass off the table with his cuffed arm.

It shattered against the black linoleum floor with a satisfying crash, water spilling into every possible direction and Jared just continued to burn holes into Wilkin’s head with his murderous glower, lips pressed into a firm, hard line.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Wilkins commented snidely because the boy was going to spend at least another five to eight hours in here if he didn’t start talking soon and Wilkins would be damned if he offered that bastard anything to drink again during that time.

He looked over at the opened case file, checking to see whether it had gotten wet from the spilled water and then cursed under his breath when he noticed the way some of the remarks made with blue gel pen grown blurred on the soaked print-out.

“Think that was a smart idea?” he bit out, frustrated over having to rewrite some of his earlier work.

“Think it was smart to let your little watch dog off the leash?” Jared shot back without missing a beat and Wilkins was so startled to actually get a response out of him after all this time that he was startled into silence for a few seconds.

It took a moment for him to even understand the reference Jared had made, he was so dumbfounded. Then his mind started racing with a couple of equally important things.

One: Padalecki hadn’t completely given up on himself, yet. There was still a fire in his eyes, near vanished, but _there_.

Two: Padalecki was threatening him. Indirectly, yes. But threatening him, nonetheless.

So he wasn’t as dead and unresponsive to the world around him, as Wilkins might have thought.

Of course, he wasn’t.

Not as long as he still believed there was something worth fighting for.

Taking a step forward, Wilkins leaned down low enough for their breaths to mingle.

“Listen up, you piece of fucking lowlife shit,” Wilkins said with a curl of his lips, enjoying the way the glass crunched beneath his shoes.

Jared’s pupils widened from the sudden closeness of their bodies.

“You might not have fully realized the predicament you find yourself in, but I have the authority to keep you in a holding cell until you fucking rot while your little poster boy spends his dying breath on a cold, hard hospital table, crying for you to come hold his hand.”

Now, _that_ got the reaction Wilkins had been looking for.

Jared’s hazel eyes went from dark and threatening to liquid fury in a second flat.

His fingers curled into fists and he flexed his muscles against his restraints.

Encouraged by Jared’s show of barely restrained emotion, Wilkins dug his nails deeper into the wound he had caused.

“The way I see it you got two options: Option A: You start telling me exactly what happened down by the docks, or Option B: We keep spending some quality time together while your pretty little boyfriend dies a slow and _lonesome_ death.”

When Wilkins saw the spark of burning hatred in Jared’s eyes, when his fists were quaking with the urge to rearrange Wilkins’ face and the amount of tension radiating from his body was high enough to set the room on fire, only then, did he flick his file back open, casually pointing towards the picture with Lakefield’s brutalized corpse.

“Now what’s it gonna be? You gonna tell me how and why you killed that fucker or do you want us to make up a reason all by ourselves?”

A minute passed by with just the sound of shuffled papers and their joined breathing.

Then Wilkins looked up with a quirked eyebrow. “Still nothing?”

Another beat of silence oozed past, thick and viscous with tension.

Then Wilkin’s slammed the file closed with a heavy sigh and got up from his chair to round the table.

Reminding himself that Jared’s hand was still restrained by the heavy-duty set of handcuffs tying him to the table’s legs, he leaned forward once again, propping himself up on the table’s surface.

“Suit yourself. Next time you’re gonna see Jensen is when he’s six feet under, you stupid piece of—“

Wilkin’s sentence cut off on a startled intake of breath when Jared’s arm shot up to grasp his chin in a bruising hold.

His instincts kicked in just a second too late and by that time he reached back to fumble for his gun, he felt a razor sharp pressure against his throat, the warning clear: don’t fucking move.

It was a shard of glass.

How the hell had he snatched it off the ground without him noticing anything?

He had been looking at that fucker the entire time… except when he moved to wipe that water off the file, but Padalecki couldn’t have been that fast, could he?

_God fucking damn it._

Jared’s eyes were so close that Wilkins nearly had to cross his own to look at him.

He could taste the other man’s breath on his lips, could hear the sound of his own frantic heartbeat in his ears as he held Jared’s gaze.

_Nothing’s happened yet, you stupid idiot. You can still back out of this without adding a dead cop to your track record. Try to be smart about this._

Maybe, if Wilkins had still known how to use his vocal cords, he would have said all of that aloud, but as it was, he was too busy trying to fucking breathe to be doing much else.

If he hadn’t been so goddamn reckless (stupid, stupid, stupid), the security guard would have gotten between them in less than five seconds and bashed Padalecki’s head down against the interrogation table a few times for good measure.

Wilkins hadn’t just sent that rookie officer on his way, but also told his colleagues to get out of the observation room behind the double-sided mirror and give him some ‘alone time’ with the perp, which meant there was nobody watching this scene unfold, nobody to come barging through the door with a gun pointed straight  at Padalecki’s forehead.

_Perfect._

_Just fucking perfect._

Wilkins swallowed dryly, trying not to move in the punishing death-grip Jared had on his head, holding him immobile while the glass dug painfully into his skin.

“You wanna continue what you were about to say, there, detective?” Jared spat out in a low voice and if possible his fingers dug into Wilkins' face even harder than before.

“Why, you’re so quiet all of a sudden, _Special Agent_. Go on, tell me how the love of my fucking life is bleeding out on a hospital table while you’re sitting here, having a fucking monologue about shit you’ve long known the answers to, you twisted, self-absorbed motherfucker. Don't hold yourself back on my account.”

Wilkins grimaced when Jared’s hand clamped down so hard on his jaw he fought he could hear the bone snap in half.

His heart was jackhammering in his rib cage, hands so slick with sweat that his grip on the table slowly started to slip and the glass shard was pressed even harder into his throat, cutting off his breath.

_You’re a fucking cop, goddamnit._

_Kid’s still cuffed to the damn table with one hand.There’s no way he’s gonna kill you with all these cameras. He’d never see the light of day again._

_He wouldn’t do something so stupid._

_Not for some run-of-the-mill college ass that was likely to die within the next 24-hours._

“My c-c’lleages—“ Wilkins tried to say something, but the hold Jared had on him made it hard to talk. “T-they’ll- t-they’re g’nna c’me in an—“

Jared shook his head.

“No they’re not or they would have come barging through that door the second I broke that fucking glass,” he explained, sounding not the least bit intimidated by Wilkin’s half-hearted attempt to scare him into surrender. “Danger of sharp objects and all.”

The bastard had the fucking audacity to smile as he dug the glass a bit harder into his flesh, cutting through the outer layer of his skin and sending a trickle of warm blood down the agent’s neck.

“And even if they WERE watching us right now, you locked the door, so in the time it would take them to get in here you’d be spilling your guts all over this nice little table.”

“T-the c-cam-cam’ras,” Wilkins forced out from behind clenched teeth (it was hard to talk with that fucker’s large paws digging into his cheeks). 

Even with the obvious lack of his rhetorical coherence, Jared knew what the agent was hinting at.

A recording of a suspect attacking a law officer would doubtlessly get him into some deep shit.

But Jared was way past the point of caring.

“They can give me the death penalty if they want,” he said, eyes deadly serious.

The kid was insane. He must have completely lost his mind.

“What do you want from me, then?” Wilkins demanded, thankful for the way his voice didn’t crack.

Jared drew in a shuddery breath.

It looked like he physically needed to pull himself together to formulate his next words.

“Is Jensen alive?”

Jared let go of his throat and moved his hand down to his throat instead, still undoubtedly threatening, yet allowing him to speak more freely.

Wilkin’s mind was tripping over Jared’s question, trying to make sense of it.

Then reality finally slammed home and a tiny, hysteric laugh bubbled up Wilkin’s throat.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Jared had just threatened a renowned FBI agent with a sharp object in front of a rolling camera, inside a goddamn police department,  and he’d done all of that for a piece of information so trivial it was hard to believe this wasn’t some kind of twisted joke.

Jared was willing to kill a federal agent and accept everything that entailed, including a twenty-to-five to life prison sentence, if it came to that, just to get informed about the kid’s wellbeing, just to hear whether he would make it through the night or not.

He was willing to give himself up completely, just for that one tidbit of information.

“Do I look like I’m fucking kidding?” Jared sneered.

Wilkins hissed when the tip of the glass shard cut a little deeper into his skin, tearing more skin in the process. “Alright, alright. He’s alive… h-he’s alive, goddamnit.”

Relief hit Jared like a tidal wave, so hard and fast that Wilkins thought it would have sent Jared swaying or falling on his fucking butt if he’d been standing upright.

His dark eyes glazed over and for the flicker of a second Wilkins thought he could see the guy’s lips trembling. Whatever trace of emotion it was, it vanished just as soon as it had come, getting replaced by the omnipresent mask of pure hatred he’d been covering himself with all this time.

“W-what are his chances? Did they perform surgery? Is he gonna be alright?”

Seeing the guy so obviously emotional had Wilkins cautiously trying to straighten up, shuffling his feet as he tried to pull out of Jared’s still grip. “Listen, why don’t you—“

“Answer the fucking question!” Jared barked and Wilkins knew a threat when he heard it.

He stilled his body almost instantly, lifting his hands in a placating manner.

He swallowed when his Adam’s apple caught and dragged against the pressure of the glass shard.

“Start talking!”

“T-they’ve got him in surgery from what I know. The bullet nicked his spleen. He’s… his chances of making it through the night are about fifty-fifty.”

Jared made a pained sound- trapped somewhere deep in his throat- and his eyes glazed over of the kind of insurmountable grief that would have made Wilkins feel for the guy if he wasn’t currently getting threatened by him.

“Is he… did they say if—“

“That’s all I fucking know, now get your fucking hands off me before this turns ugly.”

Jared looked hesitant for a second, pain and heartbreak still twisting his features into a grimace.

Then he seemed to realize that it was probably best to surrender, given their situation.

He must have realized somewhere- deep, deep down-  that his situation was hopeless.

Even if he decided to take Wilkin’s hostage and made his way out of that interrogation room, he’d still get overpowered somehow by the dozens of other officers in the building before he made it out on the streets.

And then… well, then chances were very high that he was really not going to make it out of prison before the ‘love of his fucking life’ was six foot under the ground.

Really, he had no other option but to give up.

As if on cue, Jared let go of Wilkins and dropped the shard of glass to the ground with a loud clatter.

Wilkins kicked it away with his boot and drew his gun the second Jared had let go of his face.

Jared just looked at him defeatedly and slumped in his chair for real this time, wayward shimmer of tears in his eyes as he scrubbed both his hands up and over his face only to fist them in his hair a second later.

“What now?” he asked, voice quiet in the wake of his devastation.

He looked more tortured than before, more lost somehow like Wilkins had just confirmed every single one of the nightmares that had kept on replaying in his mind during the last couple of hours.

Jensen wasn’t dead yet, but he might as well be.

Fifty-fifty was a pretty crappy outlook as far as medical verdicts went.

Kid wasn’t going to make it.

And there was nothing Jared could do.

With his gun still trained at Padalecki, Wilkins reached up to wipe at the slick blood covering his throat and muttered out a curse when he felt the steady trickle of oily warmth seeping down his vocal cords and painting his chest a warm crimson.

Fucker had caught him good.

With one hand clamped down on the wound, Wilkins yanked his tie off the rest of the way and hastily wrapped it around his throat in a way that would stop the worst of the bleeding.

Then he checked the lock to see if it was still closed and used the little remote they used for the camera to switch them off.

He walked over to the window that led out into the hallway and closed the blinds.

He checked the lock to see if it was still closed and then stalked forward once again, rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt in a no-nonsense manner.

“You know I should probably call backup after what you just did.”

“Probably,” Jared agreed in a monotonous voice, eyes flashing with the undoubted knowledge of what was coming next.

“But my mom taught me to lick my own wounds… fight my own battles without outside help.”

Jared licked his upper lip and smiled a resigned little smile that spelled ‘FUCK YOU’ in flashing big neon letters.

He lifted his restrained arm, the one that was still locked tightly to the metal table with a set of heavy-duty steel cuffs and yanked his wrist back just far enough to send a metallic echo through the interrogation room.

“Guess she missed the part about fighting a fair battle, huh?”

Wilkins smiled, but the words only added to the raging fire of anger in his chest.

“You’ve turned me into a laughing stock with the shit you just pulled,” Wilkins rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “Can’t very well expect me to just let that slide.”

That fucking biker asshole needed to be put in his fucking place and Wilkins wasn’t going to let someone else do the job for him.

No. This was something personal.

And they’d deal with it the old-fashioned way.

He curled his fingers into a fist.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

 

 

Katie didn’t know what to do.

She had been paralyzed with fear when Tom had gotten the call, when his eyes had overflowed with tears as the nurse on the other end of the line told him that Jensen was brought in with a shot wound to the stomach.

Everything was a blur after that.

The frantic drive to the hospital.

The way Danneel had sobbed into Misha’s neck and repeated the words ‘He’s gonna die… he’s gonna die’ and ‘I knew it’ over and over again until Misha had slapped her hard enough to startle her out of what was quickly developing into a panic attack.

The way Tom had suppressed his own breakdown until the nurse at the counter had looked at them all with a forlorn expression on her face- with that twisted mixture of empathy and detachment- and told them that Jensen was in surgery and that the doctors were doing ‘everything they could’ but that they should ‘prepare for the worst’ nonetheless.

And the way Tom had shaken his head in denial, voice becoming more frantic by the second as he demanded what had happened and when they could see him and if there were any other injuries they should know about.

The nurse had swallowed thickly, exchanging an awkward glance with one of her colleagues and Katie’s knees had nearly buckled from that sight alone.

She had felt sick and dizzy, one shaking hand pressed over her mouth to keep from throwing up all over the sickeningly mint-colored hospital tiles.

Jensen hadn’t just been shot.

He’d been _brutalized_.

Second-degree burns (cigarette burns- someone had put out a burning cigarette on Jensen’s skin).

A fractured cheekbone (from taking too many violent punches straight to the face).

A total of seven injured ribs, five of them cracked or bruised and two broken.

A broken thumb (the bone had been completely crushed, splintering in several places and requiring a complex surgery to repair potential nerve damage).

And a bullet hole in the stomach, causing damage to his spleen and some serious inner hemorrhaging made them lose him on the table three times before his vitals were stable enough to continue with the surgery.

Katie felt utterly numb to the bone.

She just listened and felt her heart splinter into a thousand pieces.

It was all their fault, all of it.

They had taken him under his wing, shown him the ropes, and accepted him as one of their own.

Jensen would have never gotten caught up in all of this if it wasn’t for the gang.

She thought about how much of a constant he’d become in their lives, how close of a friend he was.

How much of a solid, irrevocable member of their family.

She didn’t even want to think about Jared in all of this because the mere thought of Jared losing Jensen was so devastating, so utterly destructive, that she could hardly process it.

In a way, Katie realized that it wasn’t just Jensen’s life on the line tonight, but Jared’s too.

That no matter whether the doctor came out of that surgery with a sad or relieved expression on their face, Jared would never ever forgive himself for how badly Jensen had gotten hurt because of him.

The guilt would eat him alive.

It would kill him as surely as a bullet to the head ever could.

Katie didn’t notice she was crying until a warm hand landed on the back of her neck and squeezed gently. “Excuse me, Miss? Would you like to sit down in the seating section?”

She looked up into the sympathetic eyes of yet another nurse, who was holding out a box of Kleenex and a cup of steaming hot coffee.

Katie allowed the nurse to steer her towards the hard plastic seats in the corner of the room, when a guy in an expensive-looking suit stepped out of the elevator, casting a frantic look through the room.

“Mike!” Tom rasped out hoarsely and Katie was so startled to hear his voice after what seemed like hours of silence that the cup of steaming hospital coffee nearly slipped from her fingers.

“Thank god you’re here.”

Whatever else Tom was going to say broke off into a sob the second Mike wrapped his arms around Tom’s back in a gesture that was so loving and protective that it really only could mean one thing.

Katie bit her lower lip as she watched them, touched by the display of affection.

“I came as soon as I got your message,” Mike rushed to explain, sounding breathless and shaken. “Is he alright? Did the doctors come talk to you yet? Is he still in surgery or—“

Whatever answer Tom wanted to give came out in more hitched breaths and tears, his long fingers clenching and unclenching around Tom’s suit as he clung to the other man with all he was worth.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Mike cradled the back of Tom’s head with his palm and whispered rushed words of comfort into the taller man’s hair. “It’s gonna be alright, Jensen’s strong. You know that better than anyone. He’ll make it through this, just like he made it through everything else in his life.”

Tom’s entire face scrunched up in a grief so stark and all-consuming that it hurt to watch.

Katie felt her own eyes fill up once more, heart clenching painfully in her chest.

It was obvious how much Jensen was loved, not just by her and the gang, but by his friends from Harvard- his very own version of family.

“H-he was barely breathin' when they brought him in… he’s… fuck, Mike I can’t even— I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

Katie got up from her chair and wrapped her arms around her shaking middle.

She felt a deep cold seep into her bones.

She wanted for the gang to be here, for Chris to ruffle her hair and Chase to make a stupid joke and for Steve to kiss her like he had done in that parking lot, right before they left.

She wanted for Jared to cup her cheek and look into her eyes and tell her, in that deep, confident rumble of his, that things were going to be alright.

She wanted for Jared to make this nightmare stop and take all the pain away.

She wanted for all of them to be together again and for Jared and Jensen to shoot each other stolen glances and to light up the entire store with their smiles.

But most of all she wanted to go back in time and make sure Jensen had never gotten dragged into this mess.

She wanted for Jensen to have never met them- to fall out of love with Jared right this instant- to have never set foot in the store or the garage or made pretty eyes at Jared at the Grind ‘N Gear.

She wanted for him to have a happy life somewhere with a couple of freckled, piggy-tailed kids and a nice, lawyer husband, far, far away from all of them, where nothing bad could ever touch him.

No matter how much her heart ached and splintered at the thought of Jared and Jensen living separate lives away from each other, never knowing that that hollow ache in their hearts would never be filled because their other half was still out there somewhere, waiting for them.

Tom’s voice broke through her train of thoughts.

“—whisked off to a police station right away.”

Katie looked up from where she had stared down at her lip through a haze of tears and shuddered.

“I don’t know… I think they got five of them… yeah, Jared’s there too… they… I think they killed someone. I— shit Mike, I think it was self-defense but there’s no way to tell for sure—“

Katie was moving on her own account, standing up from her chair without making the conscious decision to do so.

Before she knew it, she’d crossed over to the two men who were speaking to each other in hushed voices, exchanging bits and pieces of information.

“You’re a lawyer?” she asked, grimacing at how weak it sounded, even to her own ears.

Mike gave her a sideways look, his arm still wrapped comfortingly around Tom’s back.

Katie thought he might not even have noticed her presence up until this point.

She swallowed, limbs trembling with a dread that threatened to drown out her rationality.

“I uh… I know you guys have every right to hate us and you’re right, we should have never- we should have never gotten him involved and I also know you guys love him,” her voice broke on the word ‘love’ and she cleared her voice, feeling so incredibly, incredibly helpless and stupid. She sniffed and bit down hard on her lip to keep it from shaking. “But the thing is... we love him, too and Jay… Jensen means absolutely _everything_ to Jay.”

“Is this going somewhere, Katie?” Tom asked, sounding tired and absolutely done-with-the-world.

He hadn’t really come off as a conceited bastard when she had first met him, but ever since the call had come in from the hospital, he hadn’t met her eyes once- like he couldn’t physically stand to be near someone who shouldered part of the blame for Jensen’s current condition.

Like even just one look at her would be enough to send his carefully crafted steel façade tumbling.

It wasn’t hard to see the hatred shining in his eyes.

The righteousness.

The blame.

Katie’s lower lip quivered.

“We never meant to get him involved. Jared would put his own life down for Jensen’s in a heartbeat. If nothing else, you gotta believe that,” she said, even when Tom’s eyes darkened. “I know you’re angry, but _please_ — you have to believe me when I say he wouldn’t just kill someone without a damn good reason, alright? He’s not some… some cold-blooded criminal. Whatever he did- whatever any of them did, they did out of love for Jens—“

“Alright, that’s enough!” Tom snapped in a hard voice and Katie actually flinched at the sound, shrinking back as yet another tear rolled unbidden down her cheek.

“I just—“

“No, okay? Just, _no_. We’ve done enough for you people. More than enough! Isn’t it bad enough that you’ve gotten him involved in this whole fucking bloody mess? That he got fucking tortured? That he might never be fucking able to have children again? That he might die?”

Katie just shook her head, feeling at a total loss.

“Jensen’s a carrier?”

She hadn’t known… none of them had. Except maybe… Jared.

“I didn’t realize—” she whispered, breathlessly.

“You and your gang didn’t realize a lot of things,” Tom hissed out through clenched teeth. "All above the damage you were causing."

“I’m so sorry,” Katie shook her head, voice breaking.

“You dragged Jensen deeper and deeper into a sea of blood and corruption. And now you’re standing here, declaring your undying love for him, but guess what? It’s too little, too late!”

“Tom,” Mike sharply interceded, trying to calm his enraged boyfriend down.

By now, the other people in the waiting room were starting to look at them, Tom’s words poisonous and loud enough to echo through the hospital corridors.

One of the nurses gave them a disapproving look and Mike decided to put an end to his boyfriend’s dramatic display of emotion.

“Throwing around with accusations isn’t going to magically heal him. It sure isn’t what Jensen would want us to do right now.”

“How would you know what he’d want?” Tom snapped. “He’s been fucking tortured, Mike! There’s no going back from that! Things are _never_ going to be the same for him, even if he survives. And who do we owe it to? A bunch of criminals that keep asking for shit even when they’re the reason Jensen’s fighting for his life right now!”

When Katie reached up to cover her mouth with a shaking hand, unsure if she was going to hyperventilate or lose her breakfast all over the mint green tiles of the sterile hospital floor, Mike grabbed Tom by the shoulders and dragged him aside.

“That’s enough! Can’t you see she’s unraveling?”

“But—“

“I know you’re scared for Jensen. We all are. This isn’t easy for any of us.”

Katie watched the exchange through a blurred vision, their conversation getting more heated by the second.

“Just quit dumping blame on an easy target, alright? For once in your goddamn life, take a backseat from this and let me handle things my way, Tommy, I swear to god...”

“What are you saying?” Tom looked hurt by his boyfriend’s words.

Mike’s lips formed a stern line. “You’re too close to this.”

“And you’re not?” Tom fumed.

“At least I got a handle on my emotions! You just bottle up your negative emotions and then you explode all over people at the next best occasion. It’s not healthy, Tom and quite frankly, it’s something you should get under control.”

Tom’s mouth fell open in shock, hurt and betrayal shining in his startling blue eyes.

He was so shocked by the verbal backlash that he was at a loss for words and Katie was oddly thankful for that, knowing that she wouldn’t survive another onslaught of hate and blame in her fragile state.

“Jensen _cares_ about Jared, Tom- more so than we can probably imagine. And he cares about Jared’s friends, too. He went as far as to trust them with his life. And yeah, I’m aware it backfired- I’m aware that things went horribly, horribly wrong at some point. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was Jensen’s decision to get involved with them- his decision to put all that trust in Jared’s hand, his decision to do the design work for the bike… and ultimately, his decision to drive all the way back and break into the garage."

“So what?” Tom asked, voice raw and hurting. “How's that even relevant?”

“It matters because Katie couldn’t have kept Jensen from doing these things, not even if she tried and neither could any of us! She’s not to blame and if you were being honest with yourself for just one goddamn second, you’d realize that.”

Katie couldn’t even put the sudden rush of warmth and gratitude she felt towards this stranger into words. She swallowed around the massive lump in her throat and focused hard on breathing.

Before Tom could do anything more than stare at his boyfriend in shock, Mike returned his attention to Katie and let out a soft sigh.

He waited for her to calm down enough to meet his steady gaze and Katie felt a strange kind of relief at the way his gaze held no accusation or blame or hatred… just sympathy and understanding.

“Listen, Katie, is it?” Mike asked softly.

She nodded jerkily. “Yeah.”

“Katie, your friends are facing some serious charges. I’m afraid there isn’t much I could do to help them, even if I tried.”

Katie took a step forward, reaching out to bunch a fistful of Mike’s suit.

“If you could bring Jared here, just so Jensen sees him when he wakes u-up, then maybe—”

Tom, who had dutifully taken a step back from the conversation, looked about ready to pop a vein.

And from the corner of her eyes, Katie noticed that Misha and Danneel had also crept closer.

“Who says Jensen’s even going to want to see Jared after all of this?”

Katie shot Misha a fierce glare for his comment.

“These two fucking _love_ each other!” she insisted. “What part of that don’t you fucking get?”

Mike sighed and scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “Did they give you a rough estimation on how long Jensen’s surgery was going to take?”

“About six hours,” Misha answered tiredly, eyes bloodshot. He looked like he’d been hit by a car and that was putting it _nicely._

Danneel was even worse. With her messy bun and the red-rimmed, swollen eyes, her pretty features were distorted and blotchy. Katie thought the five of them must have made an odd-looking group of people.

“Alright, listen,” Mike sighed before looking intently at her. “My uncle’s law firm is one of the best in town. I’m gonna make a couple of calls, pay the police station a visit and see if I can bail your friends if they’re not officially under arrest, yet. That’s going to buy them at least a couple of hours.”

It took a moment for the words to fully sink in, but then a choked sob gurgled up from Katie’s throat and she jumped forward to yank Mike into a bruising hug.

Mike went rigid in her grasp for a moment, but then he relaxed a bit and awkwardly patted her back in what was probably supposed to be a comforting gesture.

“Thank you,” Katie choked out, pulling him in even tighter.

She let go just in time to see the turmoil of emotion flicker across Tom’s features.

“I can’t believe you right now,” he whispered, sounding betrayed.

Sensing the tension she had just caused, Katie took a step back and watched the way Mike tried to reach out for Tom, who dodged the simple touch.

“Tommy.”

“They’re the reason he’s in there. How can you _even_ —“ Tom cut himself off, overwhelmed by emotion.

Then he turned around and stormed off down the hallway.

“Tom, hold on!” Mike started after him but Danneel held him back by the arm.

“Give him some time to cool off,” she advised in a thick voice.

“He’s just scared,” Misha agreed. “We all are.”

Katie grimaced, feeling like she had just caused a rift between the group of friends.

“I didn’t mean to cause any tension.”

“It’s not your fault,” Mike offered up a strained smile, even though he was clearly affected by the fight they’d just had.

“Why are you doing this?” Katie couldn’t help but ask. “I mean, why are you helping us? You don’t even know us.”

Mike looked down at his feet, then back up at her. “I trust Jensen’s good character judgment.”

Katie felt her own lips curl up, even as sadness shimmered in her eyes. 

Maybe, just _maybe_  there was still hope for them.

 

 

 

Wilkins stood in the men’s bathroom, staring at the red swirls of blood as they mixed with the colorless torrents of water.

He watched as the blood was diluted and the color faded to pink, watched until every trace of crimson was flushed out from beneath his fingertips.

For a moment, he inspected himself in the mirror in front of him, turned his head from side to side and stared at the heavy patch of blood marring the clean white of his shirt and the better half of his throat.

He loosened the tie he had used as a makeshift bandage to cover up the cut he’d sustained during Jared’s attack, then pulled a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and held it beneath the faucet until it was soaked.

He hissed as he carefully pressed the wet cloth against the wound and then pulled his suit jacket over the cloth to A) hold it in place and B) make sure none of his asshole colleagues out there noticed the shallow gash or any of the blood associated with it.

Once his jacket was back in place and he looked relatively presentable again, Wilkins cupped his hands and ran some of the by now frigid cold tap water into them before splashing it into his face.

He blinked and shook his head so that the crystal-clear droplets flew across the room, briefly sparkling in the fluorescent light of the bathroom before they landed on the mirror and the ceramic double-bowl sink.

The cold had its expected effect, reviving him in a way no cup of coffee ever could.

As Wilkins straightened back up, carding his wet fingers through his hair in an attempt to tame the unruly mane, the door to the bathroom was suddenly pulled open and one of the younger officers had stuck his head through the doorway, looking nervous.

Wilkins rolled his eyes and took a stance in front of one of the urinals.

He unzipped his pants and rolled his eyes when the silence became unbearable.

“You got something to say to me or are you here to hold him for me?”

It took a moment for the comment to slam home, then the guy sputtered and apologized and muttered something about a lawyer being here to see Padalecki.

Wilkins frowned. “Tell him to get the hell outta here, we didn’t ask for any damn’ lawyer, so—“

“Actually,” a third voice suddenly chimed in, causing Wilkins to whirl around in surprise. “It’s the suspect’s right to request the presence of an attorney during the interrogation, which is exactly what brings me here, Special Agent.”

Wilkins shook himself off and tucked himself back in with a sigh before turning towards the sink once again. “And who the fuck would you be?”

The guy produced a business card out of thin air.

“Michael Owen Rosenbaum,” he held out a hand to him and Wilkins dismissed it with a wrinkle of his nose. “I’m the nephew of Andrew Leiden from Appleman & Leiden LLP. I’ve started working for them as an attorney in the field of criminal defense and litigation.”

Wilkins felt his insides grow cold at the name that was so casually dropped in the guy’s smooth introduction.

Andrew Leiden had certainly made a name for himself and his law office in the past couple of years and if the guy in front of him was even half as good as his uncle, Wilkins was in some deep shit right now.

Carefully slipping his poker face into place, Wilkins handed the business card back to its owner.

“To what do I owe this honor?” he asked with a sarcastic tone to his voice. “Assuming there is a reason for why you’ve paid me this little surprise visit in the bathroom this early in the morning.”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” Mike nodded towards the bathroom exit with a slight curl of his lips. “I’ve got a few issues I’d like to discuss with you, so why don’t we take this somewhere a little more private?”

Wilkins laboriously moved out of the bathroom and through the hallway towards his private office and fished a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, Rosenbaum hot on his trail.

Once they were both inside his messy office, he locked the door and flicked the light switch on.

He looked down at his hands and froze when he noticed the blood on the pack of Marlboro.

“You’ve got it nice in here,” Rosenbaum commented drily, sarcasm dripping from every word as he took in the stacks of documents and overloaded ashtrays on Wilkin’s desktop. “Real cozy.”

Wilkins ignored the obvious provocation and dumped the cigarettes out on his desk.

Some of them were blood-stained as well, but others were clean.

He snatched a dry one and put it to his lips before sparking the flame of his zippo with a skilled flick of his thumb and lighting it.

He took a deep drag, noticing the way Rosenbaum’s gaze came to linger on the blotches of crimson coating Wilkin’s untouched cigarettes on the table top.

“Didn’t know they came in color,” he quietly observed, voice now void of the earlier amusement.

“They don’t.”

Wilkins let the smoke out through his nostrils, eyes blissfully closed as he let the nicotine steady his frayed nerves for a little while longer.

“Then you don’t deny that that’s blood on your pack of cigarettes.”

“No,” Wilkins took another deep drag, feeling the way his lungs protested as cold smoke nestled in them. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it? I’d appreciate it if you stopped wasting both our time and got down to the core of the issue. I’ve got a job to do, so…”

“A job that, if I’m not mistaken, should honor the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which exhibits the law that a defendant must be tried for the alleged crimes within a reasonable time after being arrested.”

Wilkins snorted, even as his pulse quickened. “I don’t need some Harvard rookie who hasn’t even finished his degree to explain the Sixth Amendment to me.”

“See, that’s what I thought too,” Rosenbaum nodded slowly, the slight curl of lips never completely vanishing from his face. “But then I found out that a renowned federal law agent like yourself failed to read out the Miranda Warning to the suspects of a serious investigation, thereby annihilating any relevance of the suspects’ statements in a legal court.”

Wilkins huffed out an angry breath. “Constitution allows us to hold them without formal charges for a time span of 72-hours.”

“But the U.S. Supreme Court also explains that in order to apply that law, the decision of whether or not a suspect is ‘under arrest’ can only be made by a court, taking into account a totality of circumstances.”

Rosenbaum looked at him with a quirked eyebrow as if to urge him on.

But Wilkins had just backed himself into a corner.

“You didn’t put any of the suspects under arrest, yet. Which means your so-called interrogation is merely a questioning of suspects. And that means they are free to leave whenever they want until an official arrest has been issued.”

“But they—“

“Not only have you kept five suspects against their will without even informing them of their right to remain silent and to demand the presence of an attorney for their questioning,” Mike continued; no trace of sarcasm left in his voice. “But more than that, you also took it upon yourself to beat a little bit of sense into one of your suspects. Or was that not Jared Padalecki’s blood you washed off of your hands in that bathroom earlier?”

When Wilkins paled and stabbed his cigarette out on the edge of his work desk, Rosenbaum crossed his arms in front of his chest and shifted his jaw.

“Switching off an official state recording cam inside an interrogation room and sending any potential witnesses out of the room so that no one could see you beating up a man in shackles,” Rosenbaum whistled low under his breath. “That kind of stuff could cost you your badge, you know.”

Wilkins swallowed.

“What the fuck do you want from me?”

 

 

Jared blinked his eyes open and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Everything hurt.

His head pounded with pain like he had just taken a sledgehammer to the forehead and his chest hurt from the deep coughs that irritated his bruised muscles and ribs.

He hadn’t fought back.

Hadn’t even lifted his arms to fend off the worst of the blows.

Maybe somewhere deep down inside he had hoped that one of these punches would put an end to his miserable, pathetic, blood-smeared existence and rid the world of him once and for all.

As it turned out, Jared was once again shit out of luck.

“Jared, can you hear me?” a male voice asked from somewhere nearby.

Jared turned around to lift his head with a great effort and winced when the movement made him aware of how sore his arms and back were.

“Jesus Christ, what have you done to him?” the voice asked and Jared tried hard to focus his vision long enough to make out a face behind the blur of colors.  “You’re lucky I’m not reporting this or you could kiss your badge goodbye, _Special Agent_.”

Try as he might, Jared couldn’t really get his mind to work properly.

Was he still in the interrogation room? Was he dead?

 _‘No,’_ Jared decided. _‘If I was dead, Jensen would be here.’_

“Who—“

“Get his cuffs off,” the male voice said, no, _ordered,_  and Jared squeezed his eyes together hard enough to make out a few familiar features in the face that hovered over his own.

Jared had seen these eyes before.

Back when Jensen’s breath had ghosted over Jared’s carotid, his unconscious body resting lax and unresponsive in Jared’s arms.

Back after the first time Jensen had gotten hurt on Jared's watch. After that fucking bar fight.

In the sanctuary of Jensen’s apartment, standing right next to Tom, one hand casually slung around the taller man’s shoulders.

Jared’s opened his mouth, licked his lips, tasting copper on his chapped lips.

“Jensen?”

He wasn’t sure he could have uttered a more articulate question, even if he had tried, but he hoped Mike got all the underlying depth and frantic desperation with which the one name was uttered.

Empathy flashed in Mike’s expressive eyes. “Let’s get you out of here first, then I’ll explain everything.”

Wilkins must have handed over the keys to his cuffs because the next moment they were removed from around Jared’s wrists.

Mike wrapped a steadying arm around Jared’s quaking back and slung Jared’s limp arm around his own neck in order to support him.

Jared couldn’t bite back the groan that escaped him when Mike pulled him out of the interrogation chair; the whole room was spinning and it took a moment for Jared to breathe through the nausea before he got moving.

He didn’t know what had happened, nor did he care.

The only thing that mattered was that Mike was apparently here to bail him out.

“’s he… ‘s he gonna—“

“He’s in surgery. I’ll tell you everything I know once we got you out of here, alright? Just try to put one foot before the other, c’mon.”

“The d-doctors, he’s…. Jensen’s a _carrier_.”

Jared didn’t know _why_ it was important, only that it was.

If anything, Mike’s voice grew softer at the statement. “I know. We told them. It’s alright.”

It wasn’t alright. None of it was.

Jared was panting by the time they had made it to the doorway of the interrogation room. One of his hands was clenched hard in Mike’s suit jacket and the other one was holding onto the doorframe, chest stuttering a bit as he tried to catch his breath, mind clouded by the burning pain that seeped through his bones and pulsed through his veins.

He had taken beatings before, the pain was nothing new.

But this was different somehow because Jared hadn’t dared to hope that he would get out of here ever again and now Mike was whisking him out like a fucking angel in an Armani suit and Jared couldn’t quite wrap his head around anything other than Jensen.

“I’m gonna see you again, Padalecki,” Wilkins promised. “Sooner than you might think. This isn’t over, yet. Not by a fucking long shot, you hear me?”

Didn’t matter, none of it did.

The only thing that mattered was that Jensen was being taken care of, that he _survived_.

Jared had held Jensen in his arms and watched him grow paler by the second, he’d felt the dead languidness of Jensen’s lips as they moved against his own, the way the life slowly seeped out of him.

There was nothing Wilkins or anyone else could do to him that could hurt worse than that.

Staring up at Wilkins from behind a fringe of sweat-soaked bangs, Jared took in a shuddering breath, his grip tightening around the doorframe to a point where it became painful.

“Don’t wish for it,” he hissed, bloodied spittle flying from his mouth because the next time Jared was going to run into that sadistic motherfucker, Jared was going to freaking _end_ him.

“C’mon,” Mike tightened his hold on Jared and guided him further down the hallway.

When they rounded the corner, Jared was welcomed by Steve’s weary smile and Chris’ snappy threat on how he was going to break some police officer’s fucking fingers if he didn’t take them off of his shoulder _‘right the fuck now’_  .

It was all Jared could do not to break down right then and there.

“Oh god,” Genevieve started forward at the sight of him, ignoring the grumbled protest coming from one of the policemen and wrapped her skinny arms around his shoulders, pulling him close. “What did they do to you?”

Despite the heavy weight in his stomach, a flutter of something awoke in Jared’s bones at the feeling of her benign body pressed against his.

Jared said nothing, just allowed his body to sink into Genevieve’s warmth, appreciating the simple gesture for what it was.

“Jesus Christ, you look like shit,” Chris commented, despite the way his own eyes were swollen and red-rimmed and his fingers were shaking so badly for a smoke that Jared thought he was gonna start thrashing the place in search for a cigarette.

Jared soaked in Chris’ voice and the feeling of Steve’s hand as it landed heavily on his neck and squeezed. He even appreciated the strained smile Chase gave him, reassuring and sad about the course of events, despite his earlier hostility towards Jensen.

They were all just there in that moment and somehow their presence made the room warmer, their future within the walls of the dark and clammy police station seeming a little less bleak for a second.

 

 

 

Jared didn’t freak out easily or often, but by the time he walked up to the entrance of the hospital, he was sure he was either going to die of a heart attack or throw up all over himself in the entrance hall.

Mike had offered to drive them home first, but they had refused; none of them ready to split up so shortly after the crap that had gone down in the police station earlier.

It was probably a good thing that Tom was waiting for them at the entrance of the Emergency Room or Jared would have done something really, really stupid like barge into the OR mid-surgery and thrown some goddamn punches.

Didn’t mean Jared was _happy_ to see him or anything.

He was pretty sure that sentiment was entirely mutual, judging by the contempt in Tom’s eyes.

“What the hell happened to him?” Tom addressed Mike first, gesturing at Jared’s face in a mixture of shock and disgust. “He looks like he went a couple of rounds with Muhammad Ali and lost.”

On their way here, Mike had told him to get cleaned up, had shoved a water bottle and some clean wipes under Jared’s nose in a not-so-subtle attempt to get him to take care of himself, but Jared had shot him down.

Jared couldn’t care less about how his fucking face looked at the moment.

Jared started forward and Tom pushed one flat palm against Jared’s chest to stop his forward process. "Not so fast."

“Get out of my way,” Jared said, deathly calm. He was so _done_ with that guy’s shit.

“They’ve only just gotten him out of surgery. Ignoring everything else that happened, and I mean _everything,_  I’m not just gonna let you barge in there all hyped up and blowing steam out of your ears.They’re gonna kick your stupid ass out before you can say Jensen’s name, you got me?”

“Fuck you!” Jared tried to push past Tom, shoving the younger man hard by the shoulders, but then there was Mike, blocking his path.

“Settle down, Jay,” Chris clamped a hand down hard on Jared’s neck and somewhere in the back of his mind, Jared realized that he should probably be bothered by the way they all kept talking to him like he was a damn powder keg, ready to blow off.

Except for the fact that he _was_.

“Get. Out. Of. My. Way,” Jared snapped, blowing air through his nostrils.

Since Jensen had broken all ties to his family, he had appointed Tom as his Power of Attorney in case anything ever was to happen to him.

Tom was also the one to decide who of them was going to be let in during visiting hours and rationally, Jared knew that he shouldn’t add to the ever growing shit list of issues Tom already hated him for if he wanted to be able to see Jensen again.

But the truth was, that once Jared lost his shit all over the place there was little anyone could do or say to calm him down again.

“Give me one goddamn reason why I should let you even anywhere _near_ him after what happened?” Tom demanded.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jared hissed.

Things were just about to escalate, when a nurse in blue scrubs and with a blonde ponytail made her way towards them, clearing her voice to make them aware of her presence.

Tom’s and Jared’s eyes were locked for another second or two, lost in an intense staring battle as neither of them backed down, but even from the corner of his eyes, Jared recognized the pale face and deer-like gaze that belonged to the young woman and felt his heart clench tightly in his chest.

“Alona,” Mike sighed her name out before pulling her in for a brief, but heartfelt hug.

Jared and the gang just stared at her in awkward silence because there weren’t even words to explain what had happened and where things had started going downhill.

“How is he?” Jared blurted out, unable to keep the words in any longer.

“Stable for now,” Alona explained and Jared guessed she must have assisted during the surgery.

She looked worn-out beyond exhaustion, face white and gaunt from hours of emotional distress and concentration.

“Have you seen him? Is he responsive? When can we go in to see him?”

“Take a breath, Jared,” Alona said.

She rolled her shoulders, probably stiff from hours of having stood in the same position, before walking them over to a relatively secluded corner of the waiting section of the emergency room.

For some reason, walking across the length of the waiting room, taking in the sterile scent of antiseptics and disinfectants as well as the mint green wallpapers and the devastation on the faces of the other people around them took Jared right back to the last time he was here. A month ago, with Jensen by his side and trying to interpret statistics while Chad was lying in the fucking hospital bed, fighting for his own life.

It was like a goddamn déjà vu, only with their roles switched and now it was Jensen who lay in the damn ER, unconscious and unresponsive and momentarily lost to them.

Somehow, this time, it was way worse because Jensen had been so very broken when they’d brought him in and deep down inside, Jared knew there was no happy end in this story, not this time, not even if Jensen was patched back up and getting back to his old self.

There was no way for them to go back to the way things had been before.

Ignoring the dull ache in his heart, the devastating black hole of despair that tried to swallow him, Jared told himself to get his hard in the game and tried to focus on what Alona was telling him.

“Jensen came out of the surgery relatively okay considering the circumstances. He’s not entirely over the line yet. We had to put him in a chemically-induced coma to stabilize him but as of right now I’d say his chances to make a recovery are quite good.”

Jared was flooded by such a massive tidal wave of relief that he spaced out for a second; all he could hear was the static of blood rushing through his ears.

He must have swayed or something because Steve was putting a steadying arm around his waist all of a sudden and Jared was so fucking relieved that he couldn’t even fend the gesture off.

He felt like he was going to be sick.

“How bad is it?” Tom cut in, sounding dangerously close to tears himself and in an absurd, detached-from-the-scene kinda way, Jared almost felt a connection between them there for a moment. Because no matter how much they were all affected by what had happened to Jensen, it was probably Tom and him who felt it the most.

“His cheekbone and left thumb are broken and so is his nose. Corrective surgery for the fractures was postponed to when his stats have improved a bit. The one on his wrist is a comminuted fracture, which means the bone was broken in several places- shattered, as you might say. They’re going to try and prevent nerve damage to the accessory collateral ligaments and bring the bone back into its original anatomic position.”

“Is there going to be any permanent damage?” Chase asked and Jared was so shocked to hear the words coming from him, of all people, that he curled his fingers into a fist.

Drawing made Jensen feel alive. His art was an expression of his inner self, of his soul and losing that- losing the ability to use his hand- to _draw_ would be devastating to him.

The thought was depressing enough to cause Jared’s eyes to well with renewed wetness.

“Movement could be impaired permanently, yes," Alona confirmed his suspicion.

Jared bit down hard on his lip and drove a hand through his hair.

He couldn’t do this… he couldn’t just stand here and listen to all the different ways in which he’d _failed_ Jensen.

“What about his ability to—“ Katie piped up hesitantly from where she was practically glued to Steve’s side, looking just about as fucked up as the rest of them. "—you know. To have kids?"

Alona let out a soft sigh. “They’re monitoring him for any damage sustained to his reproductive organs, but it seems like his spleen took the most damage from the GSW to his abdomen.”

“Could the injuries make him have difficulties with conception or labor later in life?” Mike asked.

Jared was thankful for all of them to have the rational composure to ask all these questions because he every word he tried to roll off his lips just seemed to crumble to dust on his tongue.

“They’re gonna keep monitoring him for bleedings and there are always risks of complications later down the line, but I wouldn’t worry about that too much at this point in time unless you’re planning to…” her voice trailed off suggestively and the entire group turned to look at Jared.

Jared felt his breath stutter in his throat.

Then he shook his head, his heart dying a little inside.

He couldn’t voice it out loud, couldn’t destroy that last thread of hopefulness he’d allowed himself to hold on to over the past month that maybe- at some undefined point in their future- they’d have a little girl with freckles or a little boy with Jared’s hair and dimples.

Instead, Jensen would share that future with someone else, now.

Someone who didn’t put him in danger just by _existing._

Someone who _deserved_  him.

Someone who wasn’t Jared.

"No... no, we didn't. I mean, we weren't planning to—" Jared shook his head, unable to continue and thankfully Alona saved him from taking that thought any further. 

“Jensen’s hooked up on strong painkillers, among other things. He hasn’t woken up from the coma yet and he’ll probably be out for another couple of days,” Alona continued calmly and then paused, seemingly thinking about how to phrase her next words. “He’s got a long road of recovery ahead of him, including more surgeries, heavy medication, rehab and psychological counseling. He’s  going to need every bit of help and support you can give.”

There were times when Alona sounded like a thirty-something-year-old, composed, intelligent woman and doctor and other times when her voice dropped to a wavering quiver that sounded like a desperate plea for reassurance.

“I— it’s going to be a shock… seeing him in his current state. I just wanted to tell you to prepare.”

Jared thought back to the way Jensen had trembled in his hold; clammy fingers slick with blood as they got squeezed by his own, green eyes void of their usual warmth and clouded by tears of pain.

The image would haunt him until the end of days.

There was nothing that could possibly be worse, not even Jensen hooked up to all kinds of machines and with a tube shoved down his throat, because of that, at least, meant he was still alive, still _fighting_.

With a last circular look into each one of their eyes, Alona excused herself.

“You know where to find me if you have any questions.”

Jared was the first one to rip himself out of his thoughts and bring himself back to reality.

Then he shoved past all of them and made a straight line for Jensen’s room.

  


 

Jensen looked so vulnerable and broken against the clinical white of the hospital bed.

The entire picture was wrong.

He remembered stepping into Chad’s room the first time after his accident and seeing his pale and lifeless form resting against the pillows, so still and quiet with his bruises standing out starkly against the pallid clamminess of his skin.

Jared remembered his own anger back then- the bone-deep lust for revenge that had eaten him up inside and caused him to go on a vengeful rampage.

With Jensen, everything felt different.

The second he stepped inside the hospital room, the steady beeping of the heart monitor echoed through Jared’s bones in tune to the sound of his own pulse.

Jensen’s hair was matted down his forehead with sweat and his face was so swollen and bruised it was barely recognizable, like someone had just gone and replaced Jensen- _his Jensen_ \- the Jensen that laughed with his whole body and smiled with his eyes and spread vibrant happiness wherever he went- with some vacant, colorless clone.

Jared looked at him and found himself frozen to the spot, unable to move any closer out of fear that his irrational thoughts would come true and Jensen would turn out to be some kind of robotic imitation, a shell of the man Jared fell in love with all these weeks ago.

And Jared didn’t want to kill anyone as he wanted to crumble to the floor in a pile of misery and bawl his fucking heart out. He wanted to curl up on the cool ground and claw at his hair and at his face until it hurt- wanted to cry like he hadn’t allowed himself to since the day his mother died.

Jared wanted to die right there on the hospital floor and give his dying breath to somehow, magically revive Jensen and make the past twenty-four hours undone.

Or even better, he wanted to turn back time and make the past five weeks of his life undone, just so Jensen could have a normal life- fall in love with Matt, or hell, some other college kid with an actual job and perspective and a clean track record.

 

Jared let his watery eyes drift over Jensen’s body in that hospital bed, over the bandages covering half his fucking body and all he could think was _‘This is my entire fucking world. Right in front of me, barely breathing’_.

_I screwed it up. I did this. I brought him into this whole mess. I’m the reason he’s lying here, half dead._

_I had everything._

_And I ruined it._

To say it fucking hurt to see Jensen like this, wouldn’t have even scratched the surface of what was really going on inside Jared at this very moment- at having to see his entire world in the fucking balance like this.

Taking one staggering step forward, Jared felt as if some kind of invisible force squeezed the life right from his beating heart and for the first time in _fucking hours_ he allowed the tears to come.

“Christ, Jensen. I’m so... _I'm so fucking sorry._ ”

 

 

Over the next couple of days, they took turns visiting Jensen.

Sometimes two of them came in for an hour or so, while the rest of them hung out in the waiting room.

Sometimes all of them tried to squeeze into the room at the same time, talking in hushed voices and looking at Jensen with a mixture of impatience and helplessness, as if to silently, wordlessly urge him on to hurry up already and wake up.

Jared was usually the first one to arrive and the last one to go.

He barely talked to any of them, barely ate or slept or looked away from Jensen’s still face, watching the way the bruises on his face blossomed and changed color with each passing day.

Since he’d first stepped inside the hospital, he’d only left to check on Jeff twice and then returned back to Jensen’s side immediately afterward as if he couldn’t bear the physical separation.

Today, Chad and Sandy had come to visit them all and brought Jared a bag of fresh clothing along with some take-out food from a nearby diner.

“Here, man. Go get yourself cleaned up and then get some food into you. I asked Jensen’s nurse if we could use her microwave for the soup and—“

“Not hungry,” Jared responded before Chad could get any further.

He didn’t take his eyes off of Jensen once.

“Dude, I know you’re worried but you have to eat something.”

Jared wasn’t worried.

Jared was numb.

The mere thought of food turned his stomach.

Chad plopped down on the plastic chair next to him and sighed heavily. “We could do the whole airplane thing with the spoon or—“

“Save your breath, Chad,” Katie cut in from where she was propped up on the foot of Jensen’s bed. “He’s not in the joking mood.”

Jared thought back to what Jeff had told him on that night when he had been drunk off his fucking ass and _crying_. The words were playing on repeat in his mind, like a goddamn broken record. Over and over and over again. Like an endless loop.

The words were playing on repeat in his mind, like a goddamn broken record. Over and over and over again. Like an endless loop.

Over and over and over again. Like an endless loop.

_You listen to me, son, and you listen good. If that boy means even half as much to you as I think he does, you’d do good to never talk to him again. Break his heart, screw him over… make him wish he’d never met you. Because if you don’t—if you don’t—_

_If you really care about him… you should let him go._

Let him go.

Screw him over.

Break his heart.

Never talk to him again.

Let him go.

“You wanna go for a coffee, Katie?” Sandy’s voice suddenly broke through Jared’s thoughts, yanking him out of the darkest corner of his mind.

It took Jared a moment to realize that she wasn’t talking to him, but to Katie.

“You could come too, if you want,” Sandy cut a quick look and a strained smile over at Danneel, inviting her along. They’d all gotten to know and accept each other over the course of the past couple of days, some getting along more than others.

Tom still looked at all of them like they were at fault for what had happened.

And sometimes Misha made a snappy comment as well.

Jared thought he deserved it all, and much worse.

He knew Jensen’s friends were only trying to protect him from further harm- everything they did or said was out of love for Jensen and Jared couldn’t find it in himself to blame them for it.

“No coffee for you,” Chad reminded her with a smile that was teasing and lovable at the same time. “Can’t hook my kid up on that addictive shit before it’s even born.”

Sandy flicked him off and nudged Katie’s foot. “C’mon, girls. If I can’t have caffeine, I at least want to be able to smell the ground beans down at the Starbucks. I’ll even allow you to squee over my belly.”

Standing up from the bed, Katie sent one last, lingering look towards Jensen.

“You want anything, guys?” Sandy turned towards Jared and Chad and when they both shook their heads, she leaned down to press a peck against Chad’s cheek.

After a moment’s hesitation, she did the same to Jared.

The gesture was so unexpected that it broke Jared’s reverie for a moment and made him look up into Sandy’s eyes.

Offering up a trembling half-smile that wilted about as quickly as it had come, Jared was tempted to thank her, then decided against it.

They were starting to forgive each other, to rebuild a friendship they had lost a long time ago.

“We’ll be back in twenty,” Katie declared and slung an arm around Danneel, who looked a bit uncomfortable and lost in the middle of their awkward little Jensen-fan club.

She would warm up to Sandy and Katie soon enough, but Jared wasn’t sure that would be a good thing.

Chad didn’t waste any time before he started talking after the girls had left the room.

“You’re starting to scare me, man. I feel like I haven’t heard you talking in days.”

Jared kept staring at the non-existent spot on the wall, vision glazed over.

In his mind’s eye, he could see the wall crumbling. The cracks were already there, long and rigged and foreshadowing the inevitable destruction that was going to follow.

“What do you want me to say?”

It wasn't like they usually couldn’t get him to shut up or something.

Jared wasn’t exactly the talk-active type. Never had been, for as long as he could remember.

It wasn't like there would be words, big and powerful enough to change what had happened. So why even bother?

Chad sank deeper into the green plastic chair next to Jared’s and let out a heavy sigh. “I know it doesn’t mean much, but for what it’s worth, man. We’ve got your back. We’re all here for you if you ever need to talk or… well, _talk_.”

_If you really care about him… you should let him go._

Jared’s heart was so heavy inside his chest, he thought it might have dropped to his stomach.

He swallowed a couple of times, trying hard to keep his breathing regular.

Chad was still talking and saying shit about ‘emotional exchanges’ and fucking ‘survivor’s guilt’ and it was all Jared could do to keep from hitting him in the face just to keep him from talking.

“Can you just— shut up, please?”

Chad’s mouth snapped shut and whatever he was about to say tapered off into nothingness.

“Just… don’t say anything, okay?”

Chad didn't.

 

 

  
On that same night, Jared rode his bike to the store.

He parked it in the backyard, switched off his phone and locked the front gate.

He shrugged off his leather jacket, the one with the phoenix emblem and the gang name on it, and tossed it onto the ground.

He shivered when the ice-cold November air bit into his skin and stung in his eyes.

A harsh fog escaped his mouth when he breathed out.

He walked across the scrapyard and grabbed a heavy crowbar from where it leaned against the carcass of some piece of junk car.

For a minute he stared down at his Harley, his pride and joy,  his most prized possession.

The Harley he’d let Chad do the design work for, the varnish a sleek black with their gang’s emblem, a black phoenix with spread wings proudly adorning the front fender.

He had crossed the borders of every state of America on the leather seat of his Harley, had taken comfort into her loud purr, in the way she had vibrated to life beneath him like an extension of himself.

He had slept on that leather seat, eaten on her, crap, he’d even had sex on that thing.

She’d taken him to places he never thought he would see.

Given him a sense of joy and freedom he’d never thought he’d feel.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jared's voice broke on the words and he was thankful for the fact that nobody was there to witness him as he hit his personal rock bottom.

Letting his trembling hands glide gently over her handlebars- over the curve of the fuel tank, still warm from his very last ride, Jared allowed himself to shed a tear in reminiscence.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” he repeated brokenly and lifted the crowbar over his shoulder and brought it back around in one swift downward movement, landing a forceful first blow and breaking the bike’s headlights with a loud crash.

Pieces of glass scattered on the ground but Jared kept going at it, hitting the bike again, this time from a different angle.

He thrashed her until his voice was hoarse and his face was shiny with tears and until there was nothing left of her but broken scraps of glass and metal.

When all was said and done, Jared dropped the crowbar with a dull clank and sank to his knees in the middle of the devastation he had caused, burying his face in his trembling hands.

_I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry._

_I'm so fucking sorry._

He wasn't sure who he was apologizing to.

 

 

 

As if he had somehow _known_ , Jensen woke up from his coma the next day.

Jared had been in the bathroom when it happened (of fucking course he had) so the first thing he heard was Jensen’s voice, shaky and small and raspy from lack of use- or pain- Jared didn’t know.

He only knew that he had never heard a more beautiful sound in his life.

His heart was beating so wildly in his chest he could feel his pulse tingle in the tip of his toes.

He splayed his palm against the hospital walls and pressed his lips together, trying hard not to lose it right then and there.

Then he forced himself to step through the doorway.

It was funny how Jared had spent hours and hours to come up with the right words for this moment, but the second Jensen’s heavy-lidded gaze slowly rose to meet his own, he drew a total blank- the words somehow erased from his mind in just one instant.

“Jay…” Jensen whispered his name with so much heartbreak- so much longing that it _physically hurt_  to hear it.

“I- uh, I’m gonna give you two a minute,” Tom cleared his voice, looking reluctant to leave Jensen’s side so soon after he had woken, but seemingly realizing that they needed a moment just for themselves… to reconnect.

_If only he knew…_

Jared stepped over to the bed and felt his heart come to a painful halt at the sight of tears in Jensen’s moss green eyes.

He couldn’t help himself.

Before he knew what he was doing he leaned down to brush his hand over the side of Jensen’s face that wasn’t completely broken and swiped at the tears there, with his thumb.

“Hey there, hot stuff,” Jared whispered shakily and Jensen let out a breath that sounded like a laugh. “Cat’s got your tongue?”

That’s what Jared had said to Jensen when he’d first laid eyes on him at the biker fair.

One of the first things they had ever said to each other.

When Jensen’s eyes glistened and he reached up to cover Jared’s hand with his own shaking fingers, Jared closed his eyes, soaking in the warmth that radiated from Jensen’s fingers.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like…” Jensen licked his lips, breathing hard. His voice was weak but no less beautiful for it. “Like… got hit by a truck.”

“Should I be offended that that’s the same thing you said after we had sex for the first time?”

Jensen huffed out a raspy laugh and then cringed, the movement causing him visible pain.

And just like that, whatever rush of endorphins Jared had felt at their reunion died down, the strained smile slowly wilting from his lips.

He swallowed, heart aching with the heavy weight of what he was about to do.

He had barely been able to hold his own tears at bay at this point and even in his weakened state, Jensen was bound to notice that there was something weighing his heart down.

“You… h-hurt?“ Jensen frowned and lifted the shaking fingers of his good hand up to Jared’s face, his thumb gently tracing his mouth like the touch could somehow magically heal the split lip and bruised cheeks. "Y-your face..."

“Fell down a couple of stairs," Jared said.

The joke fell flat between them.

“Liar…” Jensen mouthed, worry shining through his eyes.

Jared caught Jensen’s wandering thumb and stilled the younger man’s movement.

“There’s something I need to say to you,” Jared looked down into his lap, unable to hold eye contact.

There was absolutely no way he was going to get his next words out while looking into those eyes- not when they were staring up at him with so much trust.

“Wh’s wrong?” Jensen’s voice was so small and lost for a second, it didn’t sound anything like the twenty-one-year-old Harvard student he was and every bit like a lost little child instead.

Jared’s eyes prickled, but his voice was unwavering.

Final.

“I’m selling the garage.”

It took about three seconds for Jensen to understand, a whole myriad of emotions flashing across his glistening eyes- confusion, denial, and desperation- before his face closed off completely, every trace of happiness suddenly vanished from his features.

“You’re leaving,” Jensen whispered, voice strained with so much hurt that Jared felt like dying inside.

Jared wanted to say something- _anything_ \- to make Jensen understand.

But there was nothing he could say to make this less painful.

 

A sole, crystal tear leaked from Jensen’s eyes as a second of silence passed between them.

“Jensen,” Jared’s voice broke on the name.

“Get out.”

“Jen, I—“

“Get. _Out._ ”

The words were uttered with so much raw pain, so much unabashed, unrestrained emotion, that they were shaking from the force of it.

Jensen didn’t meet his eyes.

There was hurt written all over his posture, in the way his fingers were twisted painfully into the hospital blanket and the tears started coursing down his pale cheeks like rivulets of broken dreams.

And for the briefest of seconds Jared wished he’d kept his Harley around just long enough to drive himself off a fucking bridge with it.

Jared got up on shaky legs, feeling the dead weight of his broken heart against his ribcage.

He gathered up his jacket and turned around, stopping to send one last blurry-eyed look back at Jensen from the doorway.

And then he left.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know you guys probably hate me for this- I hate myself a little for it, but this is the pivotal turning point/climax and it was inevitable for the rest of the storyline. ಥ_ಥ I've got the following things to say in my defense: A) I know Jared's being kind of a douche right now, but he's obviously in a fragile state of mind and love can make you do stupid shit, sometimes. HE'LL MAKE UP FOR IT, I PROMISE!!! B) I do realize that this cliffie is a particularly evil one and probably leaves you all with many questions, which is why I'm already halfway into the next chapter and writing like a crazy person. I'll try to update early next week. Until then, remember that this story will have a happy end and try not to freak out too much? *Pretty please?* (◑.◑)
> 
> Major thanks to all my TheBoys for being my amazing beta and for everyone else who's lending so much support (ficluv82, Tisha, Binchen, Kimberly... I'm talking to you guys!) You're all so amazing. Thank you all so much! I really hope you enjoyed the chapter EVEN if it was painful to read. If you have a spare second, please drop me a note! Reviews make me happy! <3


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning* for bad language, violence, blood, injuries and heartbreak. There will be mentions of Jensen/OMC and Jared/OFC in this chapter. Nothing graphic.

** **

** **

**Open Road  
Chapter 20**

Jensen had always thought that having a broken heart was just a figure of speech.

A concept that had been blown epically out of proportion by books and films and premature teens who got ditched by their high school crushes on prom night.

He had never been so wrong in his life.    

The pain he was feeling was very real.

In the past month, it had taken over every aspect of his life.

It was the nausea that swirled in his stomach.

The slow drag of his own blood, thick like tar as it pulsed through his veins.

The melancholy that hung over him like a black cloak, shrouding his every thought in darkness.

Jensen’s world had become blacker than ever before, plunged into an abyss that had been caused by Jared’s absence, so dark and deep that nobody could get him back out of it again.

Jared had connected to a part so deep inside of Jensen that others never even got to know it existed.

He had seen a part of Jensen’s soul that Jensen had never given anyone access to, had systematically torn down every single one of Jensen’s defensive walls, layer by layer until Jensen’s heart had been laid bare to him, unguarded and vulnerable.

And then he had stomped down on it.

Crushed it.

_I’ve sold the garage._

Their last conversation haunted Jensen, taunted him, replaying like a broken record in his mind.

No matter how hard he was trying to ban Jared from his thoughts, the sound of his voice still rang through his mind and reverberated through his soul, painfully real like Jared was standing right across the room.

The headache was a constant companion at this point, and so were the nightmares.

His appetite had dwindled to almost nothing.

He hadn’t left the apartment since the day of his hospital release and even in the sanctuary of his dorm room he was hardly able to get out of bed, feeling drained and exhausted all the time.

Tom kept saying it was the shot wound; that his body was still healing, but Jensen knew better.

He kept the curtains closed so that he wouldn’t have to witness life going on as usual.

He couldn’t understand how the world could keep spinning, how everybody around him could continue to go on about their daily routines as if nothing had happened when every trace of light and color had been sucked from Jensen’s life.

Another tear rolled unbidden down his cheeks.

At this point, he didn’t even bother to wipe them away anymore, face sticky with salt and sore from the corrective surgery he’d undergone about two weeks ago.

The swelling had almost gone down completely at this point, the stitches had gotten removed and all that was visible of the damage was purple bruises and a fine scar that ran across his cheekbone.

The doctors had assured him that it would fade and become almost invisible over time, but Jensen knew the scar was going to be a permanent reminder of the torment he’d been subjected to.

Not that it mattered what he looked like, now.

They said ‘once bitten, twice shy’ but for Jensen it would be ‘forever shy’.

He didn’t think he’d ever be able to put his heart out there again, so it didn’t matter that his body was maimed and disgusting.

It didn’t matter that somebody had taken out cigarettes on his skin and broken his face and taken his smile away. It didn’t matter because nobody would want him now, not after all this.

Jensen rolled over in bed, wincing at the pain that still coiled in his stomach every time he moved to quickly or strained the wrong muscles.

He felt a sharp pain in his neck from sleeping in an awkward, curled-up position all evening.

His breath was rancid from throwing up during the night and his limbs were still shaking from the constant chills that wrecked his body. 

It was past lunchtime and none of his friends had come to check on him.

Once or twice, Jensen had thought he’d hear the creaking floorboards of someone approaching his door before sighing and leaving again. But he couldn’t be sure.

When the apartment had fallen quiet, Jensen wiped the remnants of tears from his face and uncurled from under his blanket.

A sharp pain in his sides had him bow over the side of the bed frame, hands instinctively clutching at the spot right over his spleen where it still hurt the most.

Cold sweat pooled on his forehead as he tried to breathe through the searing fire in his guts and it took a full minute or so (it was hard to keep track of time when you felt like you were burning inside) before Jensen’s muscles relaxed and the pain dissolved again. 

With a grunt, he lifted himself up on shaky legs and took a wavering step forward.

Putting one foot in front of the other, Jensen slowly moved across the room with his palm splayed against the wall for support.

He didn’t turn on the lights to the en-suite bathroom when he reached it. He brushed his teeth mechanically, not lifting his head up once out of fear of the stranger that would stare back at him from the reflection in the mirror.

He knew he must look terrible, imagining himself with dark circles under his bloodshot eyes and bruises covering almost every inch of his swollen face.

The baggy clothes only added to how skinny he looked, the thick hoodie he had put on practically dwarfing his lean frame and hiding the ugly cigarette burns beneath.

Jensen had never considered himself particularly good-looking, but now, with the physical evidence of his own brokenness written all over his body and the memories of his own actions on constant replay in his mind, Jensen was _disgusted_ by his appearance.

Once done in the bathroom, Jensen crept into the kitchen as silently as he could, completely unaware to Tom’s hunched over form in the corner of their living room couch.

His movements were jittery and slow; sharp breaths leaving his mouth as he pushed forward, exhausting himself with even just short distances.

He opened the fridge more out of obligation than anything else and wrinkled his nose when he saw the chicken broth Tom had brought him from his favorite take-out restaurant.

They had all been walking on eggshells around him, trying to get him to feel better in any way they could and that apparently included bringing him comfort food.

To his credit, Tom hadn’t tried to give Jensen some bullshit pat speech about how things would get easier with time or about how everything happened for a reason.

In fact, he hadn’t made a single negative remark towards Jared or blamed Jensen for the situation he had stupidly gotten himself in.

He hadn’t done so because he had been there, in the hospital recovery room, when it happened.

Tom had seen Jensen with his face buried in his hands, bitter sobs clawing at his throat so viciously that his chest heaved for breath and his muscles ached for days.

He had seen Jensen fall apart after Jared had left and he had been strangely quiet in the wake of Jensen’s breakdown.

He hadn’t told Jensen ‘I told you so’.

He hadn’t said ‘You should have listened to me’ or ‘How could you have been stupid enough to trust the guy’ or ‘I knew he was going to break your heart’.

Instead, he dragged Jensen out of the shower after the spray had turned cold and after Jensen’s lips had turned blue that first night after his hospital release; violent chills wracking his entire body as he clawed at his face and pulled on his hair, crying, bawling, _breaking_.

He had been there when Jensen woke up screaming at night, when he had woken to the images of blood and lifeless eyes staring back at him from a cold warehouse floor.

He had camped out on the bathroom floor with him on more than one occasion, rubbing Jensen’s back and whispering comforting nonsense into his ear as Jensen gagged on his own bile and cried bitter tears of shame and guilt and raw desperation into their toilet bowl.

Tom had fixed him his food and dropped his painkillers on his nightstand and he backed off when Jensen asked him to give him some space.

Sometimes, Jensen thought he wouldn’t even be alive right now if it wasn’t for Tommy.

He resented Tom a little for it.

For saving his life when all Jensen wanted to do was curl up and die.

Jensen turned around with the chicken broth still clutched in his hands, only to meet Tom’s eyes over the kitchen counter.

He sucked in a sharp breath and nearly dropped the soup in his shock. 

“It’s good to see you finally regaining some of that appetite,” Tom stated softly.

Jensen just blinked at him for a second, unsure how to respond.

Then he turned back around and poured a bit of the soup into a bowl, careful not to jostle his bandaged left hand in the process as he set the microwave for one minute.

Tom kept his eyes trained on him until Jensen was finished and set the steaming bowl of soup down before him with a loud clank of porcelain against wood.

“What?” he asked when the silence became unbearable.

Tom sighed heavily, set his own mug of tea down on the coffee table in a no-nonsense manner.

“Do you know what day it is?”

Jensen didn’t know.

He didn’t care.

“It’s Thanksgiving,” Tom filled him in.

_Oh._

Jensen froze at the revelation, breath hitching a little in his chest.

In their first year at Harvard, Jensen had chosen to spend Thanksgiving in solitude while all the other students went home to see their families.

The year after, Tom had surprised him with a second plane ticket to Wisconsin and ignored all of Jensen’s half-hearted protests as he invited him to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family.

It had become sort of a tradition over the years, a welcome distraction from the fact that his own family no longer wanted him around.

Jensen had basked in the Wellings’ hospitality, but right now, he was in no condition to go anywhere, least of all, Wisconsin.

“Tommy, listen…”

“It’s alright,” Tom cut him off. “I called mom earlier this week. She only wants you to get better.”

A slight frown marred Jensen’s features. “Wait, does that mean—“

“I’m not going,” Tom said softly and Jensen felt his throat close up.

“Tom, no,” he shook his head in denial, voice breaking with emotion. “You miss your folks. You need to go home to your family. Just- just go without me, man… it’s okay.”

_Don’t go. Don’t, please, please, don’t leave me alone._

_I feel like I’m losing it and I’m so afraid all the time and I just miss him with every beat of my heart, I miss him so goddamn much it hurts. Please- just, please—_

“There’s no way I’m leaving you alone right now,” Tom said softly, no trace of sarcasm or pity in his gaze. He just looked straight at Jensen, all matter-of-factly, like he was only stating facts that both of them were aware of, anyway. “No way in hell.”

And Jensen was so relieved, so abnormally happy about that answer that he wanted to hug Tom and never let go.

He wanted to scream ‘Thank you’ from the top of his lungs, but instead, he shook his head.

“I’m fine. Seriously. You should—“ Jensen squeezed his eyes shut in embarrassment when his voice broke on the words and a tear slipped free from his eyes.

_God, what was happening to him? When had he become so fucking pathetic?_

It seemed like all he ever did these days was cry.

The scraping of furniture alerted Jensen to the fact that Tom had gotten up.

Within a moment, he felt Tom’s presence at his back, comforting, and reassuring; _there._

“Jen…” Tom breathed out. “It’s alright **_not_** to be fine.”

Jensen dropped the spoon back down with a loud clatter, harsh breath leaving his nostrils.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, feeling so ashamed. “You shouldn’t have to— I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.”

There it was again; the wave of guilt and grief and loss, the sadness and the abiding, deep-rooted longing for a man that Jensen didn’t even want to remember- for the person that had caused all of his pain and then taken off like Jensen was no longer worth the trouble.

Like he wasn’t worth a goddamn thing at all.

It all just kept quelling up inside of him and Jensen didn’t have any control.

“Hey,” Tom’s hand came up and rested on the nape of his back. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. Just… just focus on getting better. I’m here.”

And that right there was the problem. Tom shouldn’t be _here_ , he should be with the people he loved.

“You know we’ve been thinking and…” Tom started softly. “With what you’ve gone through… it’s only normal to need someone with the professional expertise to—“

“You think I’m losing it,” Jensen forced out in between hiccups.

“I don’t think you’re losing it,” Tom looked Jensen deep into the eyes. “But I think you might be _lost_ , Jensen. And I’m not sure I can get you back by myself.”

“And you think some shrink can?” Jensen snorted out wetly, sounding unconvinced.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Tom said softly. “What do you have to lose?”

Well, that, at least, was absolutely true.

Jensen had hit rock bottom. It couldn’t go further downhill from where he was.

“I’m tired,” Jensen said and got up from his chair so fast it caused him to sway with dizziness for a second. “I think I’m just gonna—“

“Woah, easy—“ Tom’s hand instantly shot out to steady him, but Jensen shook the touch off, skin tingling uncomfortably from the brief contact.

“ _Don’t_ ,” he warned in a sharp hiss and that was all the warning Tom needed to back off.

Jensen didn’t deal well with touch since… well, since the warehouse.

Sometimes it led to a full-fledged panic attack with Jensen on the floor, hyperventilating after getting startled by an unexpected hand to the neck or shoulder.

Tom took a step back with his hands in the air. “Okay. It’s okay, Jen. I didn’t mean to—”

_Hurt you._

_Startle you._

“It’s just me,” Tom whispered, hovering close, but not too close, eyes glistening.

“Sorry,” Jensen muttered dejectedly, the brief conversation had drained whatever little energy he had left inside him.  Moving gingerly, he got up from his seat and rounded the dinner table.

“I’ll…” his voice broke off and he licked his lips, not meeting Tom’s gaze. “I’ll look around for…”

_A psychiatrist? A psychotherapist?_

A cardiologist to fix his broken heart?

What the hell was he even supposed to be looking for? 

And what on earth was he supposed to tell them?

_I’ve killed a guy… I’ve seen the lights go out in his eyes… I’ve very nearly shot the person I love in the heart… I’ve been tortured… I’ve gotten shot in the stomach.  I’ve been abandoned by the people I love for my entire life and I’m starting to think maybe I deserve it._

The truth was, Jensen had so many issues, he didn’t even know where to start working on them. He wasn’t sure if digging all of them back up wasn’t going to cause more damage than it did any good.

But he owed it to Tom and to his friends to at least try.

Tom squeezed his neck in silent support. “Yeah, okay. Go get some more rest.”

Jensen pressed his lips together and nodded before he slowly retreated back to his room.

 

** **

 

“I want to confess.”

Mike arched an eyebrow at his newest ‘client’ and leaned slightly forward in his chair.

The thing was, the guy Jensen had killed, George Wiant, didn’t have a weapon on him when the coroners searched his body, which made it look like he might not have been directly involved in the torturing, or at the very least, like the guy hadn’t posed a direct threat to Jensen.

He had acted out of self-defense.

However, Imperfect self-defense didn’t really excuse a person from the crime they had committed.

It only lessened the charges and penalties involved.

Jensen’s actions were legally unreasonable and while it was fairly certain that the court, given the extreme circumstances under which Jensen had acted, wouldn’t sanction him to a prison sentence, he could still lose his college degree and his scholarship at Harvard because of the charges against him.

Now, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan sitting beaten and bruised in the chair in front of him, hands neatly folded in a no-nonsense manner, things had suddenly taken an interesting turn.

“You want to confess to having done what, exactly?” Mike questioned calmly.

“That I played an active role in killing these three motherfuckers.”

Mike narrowed his eyes at the man in front of him.

Jensen’s fingerprints had been on the murder weapon.

And Jared’s DNA had been all over the gun that killed Lakefield.

Even if they wanted to make it look like Jeffrey was somehow to blame for all three deaths involved in the case, they’d have to make up a good story in order to convince the jury of Jeff’s involvement with all the hard evidence pointing into a different direction.

“And what role would that be?” Mike asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

Jeffrey let out a slow breath and leaned back in his chair.

For some reason, and Mike wasn’t entirely sure why, Jeff had something oddly calming about his character. He emanated a sense of authority, even after he’d been hospitalized for two weeks.

Mike had noticed the way Jeff’s expression had turned grim and withdrawn whenever Jared’s name had fallen between them, but other than that, the guy rarely ever lost his poker face.

Needless to say, Jared’s disappearance was like a hand-written confession to murder as far as the case went because innocents didn’t have a reason to leave the goddamn country overnight.

But they would cross that bridge when they came to it.

For now, Mike had more important things to worry about.

“Look,” Jeff started, scratching at his silver-streaked beard with his bandaged hand. “Lucian had beef with me because I stole his girl. He’d have never gone after either Jared or Jensen if it wasn’t for me. All of what happened, every goddamn thing that went down in that warehouse? It’s on me.”

Mike’s shoulders tensed at the revelation, his eyes taking on an interested glimmer.

He actually might be able to work with that piece of information.

“Way I see it, I’m the one to blame for everything that happened to Jensen. The kid had no clue what he was in for. He only tried to get out of this hellhole alive and who could fucking blame him for it?”

Mike just stared intently at Jeff, waiting for him to finish.

“I know what Jay did was stupid. And as much as I wanna kick his fucking ass for just taking off like that, the one thing I can’t blame him for is trying to protect the love of his goddamn life. God knows I would have killed for Mary if I’d been in his shoes, I’d have done anything to protect her. Including giving myself and my life up for her.”

Mike swallowed because he could relate to that kind of love.

He would have sacrificed his own life in the blink of an eye to ensure Tom’s safety.

At the end of the day, it was only human to think that way, to want to protect the people you loved at any cost. To go above and beyond moral boundaries to keep your friends and your family save.

And Mike found himself sympathetic for the guy in front of him, the guy who was ready to damn himself to a life in prison if only it meant Jensen would walk away from this a free man.

“You know that Jared and Jensen… they are no longer together,“ Mike stated hesitantly because it was only fair for Jeff to know that Jared was still AWOL and Jensen was still heartbroken and the two of them might never get their happily ever after.

Mike was surprised to hear the older man’s rumbled laugh in response to his words.

“Jesus kid, have you not seen the way they act around each other?”

Mike’s mouth dropped open in response, but Jeff cut him off before he could start talking.

“I might be old,” Jeff snorted. “But I know love when I see it.”

He shook his head a little, amused twinkle still in his eyes.

“They’ll come around, eventually,” Jeff’s lips curled up into a soft smile. “And when they do, they’ll need to leave the past behind. They need to focus on healing and forgetting, which means they can’t be running to the court every week. And that means the jury’s gonna need a scapegoat to blame these murders on. And that, my friend, that’s going to be me.”

“How?” Mike asked.

“You’re asking me?” he huffed out incredulously. “Go and do your fucking job, kid, make up a story. Say I was working with Lucian, playing double agent, or maybe I was trying to settle an old bill with them and the boys got tangled up in my mess. Just make it sound like they didn’t have a choice in the matter. It’s not too far from the fucking truth, after all.”

Mike was quiet for a long time.

He just sat there and thought about things for a few minutes.

Then he leaned forward once more, bowed over the table and fixating Jeff with an intense stare.

“You know there’s no turning back from this, right?” he asked. “If that whole thing works out and you get convicted, you’ll end up with a fifteen-to-life prison sentence. No chance of parole. No getting out for good behavior.”

Jeff was unfazed by Mike’s words, the smile never wavering on his lips.

He looked like he was genuinely okay with that if it meant Jared and Jensen were free to live their lives outside of a prison cell.

“Jared’s my kid. There’s no way I’m watching him go to jail on my behalf.”

Mike nodded, because what wasn’t to understand about that? Who wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice themselves for their child- biological or not?

“And Jensen,” Jeff’s voice softened a little at the name. “Kid’s shown some real guts in there, he’s way stronger than most people give him credit for.”

Jeff paused as if to think about what to say next.

Then he let out a heavy sigh.

“I’m a grunt. My life is pretty much over at this point. But Jensen- that kid’s bound to win a freaking Nobel Prize or something. He’s destined for some great stuff, you know? He’s a good man. And he deserves to have a long and happy life, preferably with that stupid fucker I call my son.”

Mike took in a slow breath, unsure what to say to that.

Jeff seemed pretty confident that these two still had a shot at a life together.

“Besides,” Jeff added after a short break. “Their grandchildren will give me something to look forward to, for when I’m getting out of that stinking shithole.”

Mike couldn’t help it.

He smiled.

 

  ****

The place was packed tonight, people streaming into the building from all sides.

Heat permeated the air so thickly it was suffocating.

Those who had never come here before didn’t know the heat, didn’t know how fucking crowded it got on Sundays and how many drifters, criminals, and freelancers stopped by on the weekends to earn a little extra money on the side.

The first couple of rounds weren’t of much interest for regulars and hardened spectators, but it was always good to watch one or two fights at the beginning of the night just to get a feeling for the predominantly male crowd and see who they were rooting for.

Jared slid through the mass of yelling people with an air of untouchable carelessness.

He looked every fucker in the eye who dared to make eye contact.

He purposefully bumped into sweaty shoulders and knocked over drinks, waiting for one of them to be stupid enough to say something- to start up trouble.

His last fight had been almost fifteen hours ago and his entire body was thrumming with pent-up energy from going so long without beating someone into an unconscious, bloody heap.

He needed to fucking detonate and he needed to do it soon.

Whoever was up against him tonight was going to wish they’d never set foot into this burning shithole. So much was for fucking sure.

“Hey, Wolf,” Cecilia, one of the scantily-clad waitresses, waved at Jared from behind the bar.

She was a local, born and raised in Tijuana and her thick black curls and the thick Spanish accent was testament to that. “What can I get you tonight, guapo? Same as usual?”

Jared hadn’t told anyone here his real name.    

They referred to him as ‘Wolf’ because of the tattoo on his neck.

And also because he was a loner.

He didn’t talk much with anyone, didn’t eat or drink until he felt close to keeling over and he slept about four to five hours per night, depending on what kind of scum he was sharing his room with.

Letting your guard down for one goddamn second in this fucking hellhole was a surefire way to get yourself killed, so Jared had gotten used to always being alert- to always keeping an ear out for trouble.

He held up two fingers, ordering his usual round of shots and drowned them before pulling a crumpled pair of bills from his jean.

Cecilia fixated him with a hungry gaze, leaning forward to until his gaze flickered down her breasts.

“On the house for you,” her voice dropped, her fingers warm and inviting against his skin.

They lingered for a second too long to be casual.

She’d have probably dropped down on her knees for him right then and there, if he’d asked her to.

The problem was that Jared knew it wouldn’t change a goddamn thing about how he was feeling.

Leaning over the bar’s counter, he made eye contact with her and dropped his voice, low and quiet so the words stayed between the two of them.

“Me creerías si te dijera que he perdido al amor de mi vida?”

_(Would you believe me if I told you I’ve lost the love of my life?)_

Her eyes widened at his use of Spanish.

He’d spoken the language for years now, understood it almost perfectly.

Spics weren’t exactly a rare occurrence in their line of business and Jared had always had a thing for languages; not that many people knew about it. Spanish had been easy enough to pick up.

Cecilia’s eyelashes fluttered and her pupils widened in interest, attraction burning hot in her gaze.

“Aunque pienses que perdiste al amor de tu vida... conocerás a otra.”

_(Some people think that when you lose the love of your life… you find another one.)_

Jared gave her a strained smile that never reached his eyes.

He would have laughed if he still knew how to do it.

The girl couldn’t even _begin_ to understand the kind of love Jared was talking about, the kind that changed your life forever. 

The kind that could destroy you as surely as it could complete you.

“No,” he shook his head. “Este amor sólo pasa una vez en la vida.“

_(No. That kind of love only finds you once in a lifetime.)_

A flicker of disappointment crossed her features, lips settling into a grim line as she realized that she wouldn’t be getting what she was looking for.

Not tonight, anyway.

Jared turned his gaze away from her and to the stage, where the fourth’ fight of the night was about to get started.

A young guy in his early twenties stepped into the cage, looking so fucking wide-eyed and green behind the ears that Jared almost took pity on him.

The crowd went ballistic when the kid’s opponent joined in from the other side, people all around Jared started making noises of shock and disbelief at the stupidity of a five-foot-something, gangly-looking teenager who went up against one of the cage’s strongest fighters.

The gasps and excited cheers of the spectators suggested that the patrons knew exactly how slim the kid’s chances were and how much they were looking forward to seeing him go down.

Kid should have gotten out of this shithole while he still could; should have traded a blow job for an actual job in a meat packing plant or something.

At least that way, he would have gotten away with his life.

The fight seemed pretty pointless, except maybe as a little warm-up for the bigger events of tonight’s line-up and Jared seriously hoped that getting his ass wiped in the cage would teach the kid a lesson and send him running for the fucking hills.

“When’s your turn?” Cecilia’s soft voice ripped him out of his thoughts.

“I’m up next,” he said, without taking his eyes off the cage.

The fight was as good as over twenty seconds into the first round.

The kid dropped to the floor with a grunt, blood trickling out of his mouth as he spit a glob of saliva to the ground and Tiny still kept coming at him, punching, kicking, growling.

His hair was a nuance too light and his skin color was too tan, but he must have been around Jensen’s age- had about Jensen’s height, too; shoulders broad and waist trim.

The similarities fucked with Jared’s mind, caused the rage inside his chest to flare up with renewed fervor- made his heart ache so fiercely that it caused his fingers to ball up into fists by his side.

Before he even knew what he was doing, Jared’s body shot forward and he was pushing through the crowd, rage burning so fierce and hot in his lungs that he could barely contain it.

He didn’t hear Cecilia’s voice when she yelled after him, wouldn’t have listened to whatever she had to say even if the sound of his own blood rushing to his head didn’t drown out the noise around him.

“¡Ven y metete con uno de tu tamaño, pedazo de mierda!”

_(Why don’t you take it up with someone your own size, you piece of shit?)_

Fucker wouldn’t look so damn smug for beating someone half his goddamn size once Jared was done with him.

The crowd caught on with what was happening and broke out into excited screams, waving dollar bills and making last second bets before the new fight started.

Jared gripped one of the cage’s bars up on stage with his hands and pulled himself up and into the ring in one swift move, forgoing the set of stairs that led up to the cage from the back entrance as he slipped in between the rusty metal bars.

He waited just long enough for the kid’s unconscious and beaten body to get dragged off stage before he stepped inside and yanked his shirt off his chest.

This wasn’t anything like the streets.

It wasn’t anything like boxing.

There were no rules in the cage and there was no mercy.

Once you had stepped inside that ring, there was only blood and broken bones and hot, sweaty, skin-on-skin contact.

Boxing was all about technique and protective gear.

Cage fighting was the exact opposite, it was the sport of those who were desperate enough to spill blood for a couple of crumpled bills, those who willingly got their nose broken and their teeth knocked out for a few minutes of distraction from the hell that was their daily lives.

The only rule that existed within the bars of the cage was to beat the living shit out of each other.

Any method was game, there was no such thing as a fair fight.

The fights were always violent, but on special occasions, when they had ‘weapon nights’, the fighters could even bring their own equipment to the show- could bring a crowbar or brass knuckles or a steel pipe for extra spice.

On those nights, blood spattered across the visitor’s wide-eyed faces, the fading memory for those who didn’t leave the cage breathing, wiped away along with the poor fucker’s last remnants as he was scratched off the fucking hardwood floor.

During his first couple of fights, Jared had let loose like he’d never let loose before.

He had played up to the crowd, had known exactly when to throw his punches and how to make them count.

He’d fed on the crude comments and catcalls and wolf whistles tossed his way and channeled all the anger he felt, had put all the mind-numbing despair and grief into the force of his blows.

He’d knocked his first opponent unconscious within eighteen seconds of his first fight.

Sure as fuck got him noticed. By the visitors, the bookkeepers, the fucking mafia, and the goons the owner of the joint had hired to keep his men in line.

It got him noticed by the waitresses and hookers, too, if the amount of phone numbers he’d been slipped in the past few weeks were anything to go by.

It suited him, this kind of fighting style; no rules, no fancy techniques and not a goddamn thing to lose.

Just two guys and four fists and no care in the entire fucking world.

“You got a death wish, Lobo?” Tiny, the guy who had just gone up against the newbie, asked with a curl of his lips, yellow teeth flashing predatorily in the stuffy heat of the spotlights.

The taunts were a part of the whole show, but Jared couldn’t be bothered to waste his breath.

Instead of letting the empty threats get to him, Jared used Tiny’s distraction to make his first move.

He swung his fists, dodged an attack, whirled around and landed a satisfying first blow to the guy’s chin. Tiny stumbled back against the bars and Jared followed suit with an undercut and a serious of vicious kicks and punches to the guy’s unprotected abdomen.

Left, right, left, back, forward, to the side, dodge… _attack_.

The crowd went wild around them but Jared was in the zone now, adrenaline and fury drowning out what was going on around him and giving him a sense of detachment as he lost himself in the battle.

Jared sped his movements up, took a backward step and bounced on the balls of his heels, dodging, ducking, striking out again, hard and vicious.

He used his speed to his advantage, tiring Tiny out and aiming his blows to the guy’s midriff, not letting up, not giving his opponent a second to breathe and gather his bearings.

Sweat was dripping down his lithe body, sticky rivulets of warmth tracking a clear path down between his chiseled abs, past old and new scars and tattoos that told his entire life story, down to where his slacks sat dangerously low on his hips.

Tiny was swaying, eyes at half-mast as his synapses threatened to short-circuit from exhaustion and Jared made sure to look into the fucker’s blood-shot eyes _‘yeah, look at me, bitch’_ before he landed a final, well-timed, punch to his jaw and dropped him like a bag of bricks.

Jared looked up at the sound of a horn that blared and signified the end of the fight.

“EL GANADOR POR K.O. LOBOOOO!!!” the moderator yelled into the PA system.

Win _by knockout._

 

  ****

It took three months filled with nightmares and panic attacks before Jensen was able to reestablish some sense of normality in his life.

He went to see a psychiatrist two times a week, sometimes three, depending on how bad of a week he was having.

He spent about 90% of his sessions either crying or yelling, but his therapist told him that they were making progress, that it was important for Jensen to vent his emotions, so he did.

He bought himself a punching bag and signed up for boxing classes, ignoring his doctor's advice to take it easy while he was still healing from the gunshot wound in his abdomen.

Boxing was a good way to let go, it took his mind off of things for a while.

But despite his new hobby and the therapy sessions and his friends’ best efforts to make Jensen feel better, his life was still dull and colorless in every way it mattered.

Food still tasted like cardboard and music sounded dull to his ears.

Every now and then, Jensen felt himself tear up in odd situations, like when he was walking by a steakhouse _“I was half afraid you were one of these peace-loving vegans,”_ or when someone drove past him on a Harley _“Your bike’s like an extension of yourself,”_ or when a metal song played on the radio _“You’re telling me you’ve never listened to Five Finger Death Punch?”_.

He still woke up screaming when his mind decided to play tricks on him and showed him altered versions of reality in which Jensen was back in the warehouse, pulling the trigger of that fucking only that this time the bullet was in the right chamber and shooting a hole right through Jared’s heart.

In those nights, with the horrifying picture of Jared’s lifeless eyes staring up at him branded to the back of his eyelids, Jensen curled up in a corner of his room and clutched his phone so tightly it _hurt_ , finger hovering over the call button beneath Jared’s name.

In those nights he needed Jared more than ever, needed to hear his voice to tell his dreams from reality, to ground himself in the knowledge that Jared was still alive, still breathing, still out there somewhere.

In those nights it didn’t matter how much healing he had done on the outside.

Inside, he was still every bit as fucked up as on the day Jared had left.

 

  ****

Sometimes Jared dreamed of Jensen’s smile, of the way he would throw his head back in laughter, eyes crinkling at the corners, only to wake up the next second with dull silence ringing in his ears and tears trickling down his pale cheeks.

“Are you crying?”

Cecilia’s voice startled him and Jared let out a curse, sitting up on the ratty mattress he called a bed.

He wiped a shaky hand over the wet mess on his face and pulled the sheets up around his waist, feeling strangely exposed under the girl’s watchful gaze.

“What are you still doing here?” he asked in a hard voice. “I told you to leave.”

Cecilia’s brows knitted together into a frown. “I thought—“

“You thought wrong,” Jared bit out, his emotional state making him even snappier than usually.

Cecilia’s frown quickly turned into an angry sneer. “So I’m good enough for you to fuck but you won’t share your bed with me?”

Jared wanted to tell her that only lovers shared their bed and that that wasn’t what they were.

They didn’t cuddle or spend the night holding each other.

Most of the time, he couldn’t even bear to look into her eyes when he fucked her.

Every time she tried to kiss him, he turned his head away, unable to stand the feeling of her lips (too soft and not full enough) against his own.

Funny how kissing was more intimate than sex in a lot of ways.

Over the years, Jared had lost count of all the people he’d screwed, but he could remember each and every fucking kiss he'd ever had.

“No me di cuenta de que sería tu mujerzuela.”

_(I didn’t realize I was going to be your whore)_

Jared huffed out a humorless laugh.

Like she hadn’t known _exactly_ , what she was signing up for.

“Dígame algo,“ Jared demanded, eyes narrowed. “¿A cuántos chicos de este edificio te has cogido?”

_(Tell me something… how many guys in this building have you fucked?)_

Cecilia’s eyes went huge for a second, cheeks burning with shame or fury, whatever it was, Jared couldn’t be bothered to care.

Her hand lashed out fast but Jared caught her wrist before it could impact with his face.

They stared at one another for a few seconds, their breathing loud in the tension-filled silence.

“Get the hell out of here,” Jared bit out and released her hand with a jostle. “ _Now._ ”

She didn’t have to be told twice.

  ****

It took six months before Jensen felt comfortable enough to go out with his friends again.

He had reluctantly allowed Danneel to style his hair and pick out an outfit for him.

“You look gorgeous, you know?” she softly told him when she noticed the way he kept squirming in the T-shirt she had chosen, pulling it up around his neck out of fear that someone might be able to spot the burn marks beneath the thin fabric.

He was wearing a pair of dark Jeans and a white V-neck and when he looked at the mirror once Danni was done with him, he actually gaped a little at his own reflection.

The shirt was practically clinging to his frame and the jeans sat snugly against his legs and rear.

His hair had grown out and Danni had styled it so that it was out of his face, but not overly gelled.

She had swept his gold blond mane over to one side, done in a fashion that almost seemed careless and somehow made the green of his eyes pop.

“I…uh… it looks—”

“I told you. Amazing what a little trim and a brush can do,” she winked at him and Jensen ran his fingers through the soft strands before returning her smile, albeit hesitantly.

He let out a soft sigh, heavy and burdened and Danni’s expression fell. “You know, we can always leave if it becomes too much or something. Or take a rain check. There’s this new movie I haven’t seen and I heard it’s—“

“Danni,” Jensen softly interrupted her.

They were always giving him an out these days. Always going easy on him, afraid to trigger yet another breakdown and Jensen was so sick of getting treated like a damn kid, so sick of being weak in the eyes of the people he loved.

Danneel blinked and let out a sigh. “I don’t want to pressure you into something you aren’t ready for.”

Jensen actually smiled at that because it sounded like she was trying to get him to sleep with her.

“You aren’t pressuring me,” he said softly. “It’ll do me good to get out of here.”

She tried for a smile but it came off skewed; tinged with sadness.

“Okay,” she whispered, before pulling him into a hug.

Jensen basked in her warmth, the comforting scent of her flowery perfume, the feel of her heartbeat against his own and told himself to get his shit together.

Maybe it wasn’t even going to be that bad.

Maybe they wouldn’t take one look at him and see how fucking damaged he was.

_Maybe._

 

  ****

As it turned out, alcohol didn’t mix well with a broken heart.

“Oh god, Jensen, just— just try to calm down, okay?” Misha pleaded with him.

There was a hand on his back and another hand at his forehead, brushing his sweat-soaked bangs from his eyes as he gagged and spit bile into the toilet bowl of some prissy college sorority.

“I didn’t know,” Danneel asserted her innocence in a wrecked tone. “I swear I didn’t know.”

Turns out that the boyfriend of the girl who had thrown the party was named _Jared;_  of all the fucking names in existence, the guy’s folks had to pick this one.

And as if that hadn’t been bad enough, Jared had also driven his _motorcycle_ to the party, proudly showing off his wheels and presenting his new Harley to a group of people right outside the college building.

Jensen had been out smoking because the crowd inside had started to bother him and he wasn’t quite drunk enough to start up a conversation with anyone. 

He had leaned against the façade of the house, enjoying the cool January air when he had heard it.

“Hey, Jared! About time you showed your face,” a voice greeted and Jensen’s blood had turned to ice in his veins. He had blanked out for a moment, the cigarette falling from slack fingers.

 _Jared._ Jared had come for him- back to him. Jared was here. He was back. He was finally back.

Jensen’s heart had lodged in his throat as he had stumbled forward, body moving on its own accord as if he was being pulled in by a magnet.

He was so close- Jared was right there- just a couple of feet out of Jensen’s reach.

All he needed to do was lift his arm, stretch his fingers and—

“Dude, who is this? The guy on crack or something?” ‘Jared’s’ voice rang out loud and clear through the night and Jensen’s breath hitched, eyes widening with hurt as he realized how close he was standing to a total stranger with his hand lifted as if to touch him.

Because this guy in front of him wasn’t _his_ Jared.

He was too young, his hair was too light, his shoulders not broad enough.

He was just an imposter, just some random stranger who’s name happened to be Jared.

The realization robbed Jensen of his ability to think or feel or breathe.

It ripped out the ground from beneath his feet and sent him into a free fall.

“I-I’m—“

“Jensen!” Misha had suddenly appeared right next to him, eyes wide and horrified and chest heaving as he tried to regain his breath. “We were looking for you—“

Misha’s voice faltered when he noticed Jensen’s expression.

His eyes sparked with fury when he saw the forlorn expression of pure heartbreak on his face.

Because Jensen had been fine just a minute ago and now he was two seconds away from a full-fletched panic attack.

“What the fuck is wrong with you guys? What did you say to him?”

“The hell are you even on about? We were just standing here, talking, when this creep walked up to us and tried to touch Jared.“

“Wait- _Jared_? His name’s Jare… you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Misha grumbled and he was probably going to say more if it hadn’t been for Jensen doubling over on the sidewalk next to him and throwing up every drop of alcohol he’d drunk throughout the night.

He had been shaking, shivering and dangerously near to hyperventilating, breath punching in and out of his lungs at a near-frantic pace when Misha cursed and grabbed Jensen around the waist before hauling him off to the nearest bathroom.

“I wouldn’t have brought him here if I’d known,” Danni started again, voice breaking over the sound of Jensen retching into the toilet bowl.

“You couldn’t have known, alright? This could have happened anywhere,” Misha sighed.

And Jensen shuddered at the thought because yeah, he was definitely going to meet people in the future who were called Chris or Katie or  _Jared_ and it would never stop killing him.

Because despite all the pain and grief he’d suffered through in the past six months, his heart had still somersaulted with overwhelming joy at the prospect of having Jared right there within reach, again.

His body had still gravitated towards Jared like a moth to the flame.

And even just the prospect of Jared being close by had sent more thrill, more emotion, more _liveliness_  through Jensen’s body than he had felt in all of the six past months combined.

“Hey… shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

 _‘No, it’s not,’_ Jensen wanted to yell at them. _‘It’s not fucking okay.’_

 

  ****

“He just- he wouldn’t stop crying. I mean it was such a terrible setback for him, you know? I’m starting to think he’ll never get over this.“

“Mhmm,” Doug hummed disinterestedly, moving his hand up higher on Danneel’s thigh and leaning in to lick and bite at the side of her throat.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Dannel exclaimed, shoving Doug off of her with incredulity in her voice. “In case you haven’t listened to a word I just said, one of my best friends is having a mental breakdown and I’m trying to figure out how to help him!”

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t be a prude,” Doug complained, leaning in once more to continue where he’d stopped. “Let’s just get back to my car and I’ll take your mind off of things for a bit.”

“Wow,” Danneel shoved him back once more, harder this time. “Way to be an inconsiderate prick, Doug. You really know how to make me feel understood.”

Doug’s expression went from seductive to pissed in one second flat, eyebrows pulled into a grim frown and lips thinning out in anger when he realized that he wasn’t getting what he wanted.

“You know what, screw this,” he grabbed his car keys and wallet from the dinner table they’d been sitting on and got up, brushing dust from his football sweater. “Been getting a headache from all that drama talk about your faggot friend, anyway.”

Danneel’s jaw dropped and her heart came to a screeching halt in her chest.

She had about three seconds to be outraged before a fist smashed squarely into Doug’s face and knocked him flat on his ass.

Danneel gasped and jumped up from the bench in shock as Doug moaned and clutched at his jaw, winding himself on the ground like a worm on a hook.

She looked up to stare at a guy with messy, long hair and the most gorgeous pair of eyes she’s ever seen. She felt a pang of familiarity at the sight, but couldn’t really put her finger on why.

The guy let out a low whistle, clenching and unclenching his fist as if to check whether all his fingers were still attached.

“You got something else to say about Jensen or was that all?”

That voice… the low rumble, the threatening tone that laced the words- she’d heard it before.

This was one of Jared’s friends.

_Chris._

“I-I’ll call t-the cops—“ Doug stammered out brokenly, bringing her back to the here and now.

“Yeah, whatever,” Chris snorted, disgusted. “Get out of my fucking face.”

Doug all but scrambled out of sight, not even sparing Danneel a second glance as he fled the scene and somewhere in the back of her mind she berated herself for having such crappy taste in men.

She should have ditched Doug’s ass a long time ago.

“You’re part of Jared’s gang,” she stated softly, holding his fierce gaze.

Chris flashed her a dazzling smile.

“And you are way too fucking beautiful to hang with the likes of that self-absorbed prick over there.”

Danneel crossed her arms in front of her chest and raised a brow. “You came all the way here to tell me the guy I’m dating is an asshole?”

“No, actually, I came all the way to tell you that you’re beautiful.”

For a moment, Danneel was left floundering at the sassy comeback.

Then she blushed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, trying not to show how much the compliment got to her.

“Stop flirting, asshat,” a different voice chimed in from the side and Danneel looked up to see a second guy approaching them, equally tattooed but younger and scrawnier than Chris.

She had seen him too, back at the hospital. But he hadn’t shown the same affection towards Jensen, had been mostly concerned with Jared’s wellbeing, instead.

“I’m Chase,” the guy held out his hand with a loose smile on his lips and she shook it. “That idiot over there’s Chris. Maybe you remember us from back at the hospital.”

Danneel nodded and gave them an awkward little smile. “Well, now that we’ve established who we all are and that I’ve got crappy taste in men, how can I help you guys?”

Chris and Chase exchanged a brief look, an entire conversation passing between them.

Then Chase pulled a bottle of Vodka and three shot glasses out of his coat and slammed them down on the table, the glasses already chilled from the cold winter air. “Do you drink?”

It was such an odd question that it startled her for a moment. “Occasionally, yeah.”

Chase smiled and filled their glasses before shoving one across the table, the clear liquid sloshing over the rim. “Consider this a fucking occasion.”

Chris leaned forward conspiratorially, eyes deadly serious when he spoke.

“We’re bringing Jensen and Jared back together.”

Danneel sputtered at that, spitting the sip of vodka she’d just taken across the table in front of her, coughing and gasping for air.

“You’re supposed to drink it, not inhale it,” Chris smirked, patting her back and Danneel managed to blush a little in response.

She wasn’t usually like this with alcohol.

It was just that what they were suggesting…

“You guys are crazy.”

As much as she wanted for Jensen to be happy again, she’d also never seen him so hung up over any of his previous hookups before (which, come to think of it, weren’t all too many) and the chances of Jensen just forgiving what Jared had done, were pretty slim in her book.

“Look,” Chris sighed, sounding tired. “Jared took a crowbar to his bike and sold the fucking garage. He’s unraveling. And I’m willing to bet Jensen is, too.”

Danneel’s eyes flickered to the side, pain and sympathy bleeding into her gaze.

“I know Jared messed up and Jensen’s got every goddamn reason to be pissed at the guy, but they fucking need each other. And if it takes someone to make them realize that, then that’s gotta be us.”

Danneel felt an immense flood of hopefulness fill her at Chris’ words. Because he was right, she might not have actually witnessed Jensen and Jared together, hadn’t even gotten to really know Jared or anything.

But she’d definitely noticed the changes Jared had brought forth within Jensen, the way his eyes had lit up whenever he talked about Jared, the way he had laughed more and smiled more and just overall been _happier._

And if they came up with a plan to bring these two back together, to somehow make them realize that they could find happiness in each other, now that would be truly amazing.

“So…” Chase urged softly, arching an eyebrow. “What do you say?”

Danneel knocked back another shot, closing her eyes as she felt the familiar burn in her throat.

Then she slammed the empty glass back down on the table and let out a slow breath.

“I’m in. One hundred percent.”

Chris whooped and pumped a victorious fist in the air. “Alright! That’s the fucking spirit!”

Chase grinned at her from across the table.

“Welcome to Operation Omega. You’re officially part of the team.”

 

  ****

It took seven months before Matt started showing his face again, coming over for drinks and food on their weekly Wednesday X-files night.

Tom hadn’t been happy about it at first, consistently bringing up the fact that Matt was a recovering alcoholic and that he had hurt Jensen before, that he might relapse and have another freak-out at some point.

After all, Tom wouldn’t be Tom if he didn’t worry about Jensen’s life choices.

But Matt had been insistent, texting Jensen after class (Jensen had picked up courses again) and asking him if he wanted to go out for coffee or for a walk, or if he needed someone to talk to.

Jensen kept telling him ‘No’ for weeks on end. 

Until at one point, he was just too fucking tired and worn out to keep up the steel front, so he told Matt that he and his friends were catching a movie and that he could join them if he wanted.

Matt _did_ show up.

He came the next week, too. And the one after that.

With each passing week, Matt’s smile got a bit brighter and the space between their bodies became a bit smaller.

Sometimes, Matt would reach out to brush their fingers together, casually, like he hadn’t meant to do it, and Jensen would quickly withdraw from the touch like he’d been burnt by it.

It got better over time, but the tension never completely left Jensen’s shoulders when Matt leaned in too close or when he ghosted his fingers over Jensen’s back.

But Matt was respectful and quiet and he showed a hell of a lot of patience where Jensen was concerned.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, Jensen could convince himself that maybe they should give it another try- that maybe Matt would be able to make Jensen _forget._

So when they’d stayed up late one night and Matt had tentatively asked Jensen out on a date, eight fucking months after Jared had left, Jensen told his broken heart to shut the fuck up and took him up on the offer.

They went for dinner and a walk on the lakeside and when Matt’s slightly too thin lips pressed against Jensen’s and his bony fingers dug into the back of his scalp as if to keep him from pulling away, Jensen told himself to go along with it.

Eight fucking months before Matt kissed him and Jensen tried NOT to pretend that it was Jared’s body pressed up against him- that it was Jared’s hands on his skin, Jared’s tongue parting his lips.

They slept with each other on the night of their third date and when it was all said and done, Jensen excused himself quietly and slipped into the bathroom.

He pulled the door closed behind himself, effectively shutting the outside world out and slid down to the floor in a crumpled, shivering mess, crying so fucking hard he thought he was going to die from it.

Matt hadn’t made him forget.

He had only reminded him of what he had lost.

 

  ****

Operation Omega consisted of three stages.

**_Stage 1: Getting Jared back from wherever the hell he was and kicking some sense into him_ **

**_Stage 2: Completing Jensen’s art portfolio for Yale and sending it off before the application deadline_ **

**_Stage 3: Getting Jensen to forgive Jared and bringing these two stubborn assholes back together_ **

Danneel’s first ‘mission’ had been fairly easy, or so she’d thought.

“Hey, Jensen, can I ask you something?” she had casually taken a sip from her coffee, eyelashes fluttering innocently over at Jensen, who was lost in yet another anatomy book.

“Sure,” Jensen’s brows had knitted together and he’d looked over to meet her studious gaze.

“Uh…” she swallowed, hoping against hope that Jensen wouldn’t be able to see right through her lies and at the true purpose behind her next question. “So one of my friends is planning to get a tattoo.”

Something flickered in Jensen’s gaze, sharp and vulnerable before he could hide it.

She winced, mentally scolding herself for having agreed to do this.

It was really hard to remind herself of the fact that she was doing this FOR Jensen when he looked at her as if she was out to hurt him or something.

“And?” he prompted, obviously unhappy with where this conversation was going.

Motorcycles and tattoos had become taboo topics in the past nine months.

“Nothing… she just… she isn’t sure what motif to get done, like she keeps thinking it should be something flowery or a quote or something, but she can’t seem to make up her mind.“

Jensen’s scowl intensified and Danneel felt her hands become sweaty as her words came out faster than before, nervousness getting the better of her. “I was wondering if maybe you could show her some of your designs. You know, the ones that you did for the art project.”

Jensen’s gaze dropped and Danneel swallowed.

He was quiet for so long that Danneel started to wonder if maybe she’d gone too far- if the questions had insulted him or returned some of the memories that Jensen so desperately tried to suppress.

“They’re gone,” he eventually said, clearing his throat.

Danneel felt as dread settled in her guts. They had already suspected something like this, but to hear it firsthand from Jensen’s lips was a tad more frustrating than she had expected.

“Gone where?”

“I shredded them.”

Danneel closed her eyes, feeling dizzy with disappointment and Jensen’s frown deepened at her reaction, obviously sensing that something was off about this whole conversation.

“Okay, well, thanks. I’ll just tell her to keep looking.“

“I heard the internet is a good place to look stuff up,” Jensen's voice was dripping sarcasm.

“Yeah, that’s…” Danneel got up from the couch and grabbed her jacket on her way to the door, already thinking about a plan B. “That’s a good idea. I’ll make sure to tell her that.”

She slammed the door closed behind herself and rolled her eyes at her own inability to put up an act.

What the hell were they supposed to do now?

Jensen had destroyed the drawings.

_Or had he?_

Shredded didn’t necessarily mean he’d tossed them, right? Maybe if Jensen still associated some kind of emotionality to these drawings he hadn’t gotten rid of them entirely.

A spark of hope flared to life in Danneel’s chest.

She knew what she had to do.

  ****

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Danneel strode through the door of ‘Fran’s Auto Repair’ – the new garage the gang had started working for- and triumphantly waved a brown folder through the air.

“I’m a goddamn genius,” she grinned, feeling an odd sense of proud over her accomplished task.

Chris dropped his wrench to the floor with a clatter and closed the hood of the Chevy he’d been working on. “I never had a fucking doubt about that.”

Danneel blushed at the words; she was doing that a lot lately.

“I got it,” she said and held the folder out. “It’s all in here. He was hiding it in a box beneath his bed.”

And yeah, she had felt like an asshole for invading in Jensen’s privacy like that.

Chase edged closer as well, wiping the grease off of his fingers on an old rug.

Chris opened the folder and let out a soft gasp when he saw Jensen’s drawings, or what was left of them.

The paper had been torn into pieces, completely shredded until they had been reduced to a pile of barely recognizable confetti.

“Shit,” Chris growled out under his breath, obviously having expected something else.

“I know it looks bad, but—“

“Bad?” Chris slammed the folder back closed and ran a hand through his long hair in frustration. “He fucking destroyed it. There’s barely anything left of his actual drawings. There’s no way we can use this for the portfolio.”

“I thought we might be able to—“

“Chris is right,” Chase cut her off with an equally grim disappointed expression on his face. “This is bullshit. We’re better off letting Chad draw some stuff and handing that in, instead.”

“But then it would no longer be Jensen’s work,” Danneel frowned, not liking the idea one bit.

She knew Jensen would never agree to take a spot at Yale’s Art School if he hadn’t earned it rightfully. If the drawings they’d sent to the application committee weren’t even his own.

Genevieve huffed out a bitter snort. “Yeah, I can see him throwing a tantrum about that.”

“Look, guys, I know it sounds crazy, but I was thinking we might be able to salvage some of them, put them back together, somehow.”

“Put them back together how?” Chase asked sarcastically. “With duct tape and safety pins?”

“Yeah,” Danneel said, eyes narrowed in determination. “If that’s what it takes.”

They were all quiet for a moment, looking at her like she had lost her mind.

“You were the ones who wanted to do this,” she accused angrily. “You approached me with this. You said to do anything to make this thing work and now we have one little drawback, one fucking hurdle thrown our way and you’re all ready to give up?”

She snorted disbelievingly. “What kind of a fucked-up team spirit is that?”

There was a beat and then Genevieve shook her head. “Can’t believe I’m fucking saying this, but she’s got a point.”

“Alright,” Chase rubbed a hand over his forehead, sounding mildly awed, whether it was by her persistence or the fact that Genevieve had shown her support, Danneel couldn’t be sure.

“Let’s fucking do this.”

“You are aware that this is gonna take us hours, right?” Chris groaned, not sounding enthusiastic about having to spend the next couple of hours looking at tiny pieces of paper and trying to put them back together again like a pencil-drawn 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Danneel bit her lower lip and tried to hide a smile.

She couldn’t say that she was particularly saddened by the prospect of spending the next couple of days here with the gang… their company was surprisingly refreshing and Danneel could easily see why Jensen had liked them so much.

“Where are Steve and Katie?” She asked because if they were going to do this, they were going to need every helping hand they could get.

“Katie’s got the late shift today. And Steve…” Chris actually grinned a little at that, sharing a glance with Chase and Genevieve. “He’s on his way to TJ as we speak.”

“You’re shitting me,” Danneel breathed, barely able to hide her excitement.

For the past few days, Chase had hacked into Jared’s banking system tracking him down to his last credit card transaction in Tijuana, Mexico, shortly before he’d gone completely off grid.

They had planned to follow up on the lead, but Danneel hadn’t thought they were actually going to follow through with it until a later point in time.

“Oh my god,” Danneel let out a shocked breath. “That means…”

“If everything goes as planned, they’ll be back by tomorrow,” Chris finished.

They shared a private smile until Genevieve cleared her throat, breaking the moment.

“Better kick it into fucking high gear, then. We got work to do.”

Danneel pulled her phone from her jeans pocket and hit speed dial. “I’ll call reinforcement.”

 

  ****

Reinforcement came in the form of Tom and Misha.

Mike was still too busy working on the case, but he assured them his help if they needed it.

Tom had been reluctant at first, but to everyone’s surprise, he had agreed that something needed to be done about Jensen’s depression, whether it meant getting involved with Jared or not.

And so the game was on.

It took twelve hours in troublesome handiwork for them to piece Jensen’s drawings back together.

Some of them were destroyed beyond repair.

But in the end, they managed to tape five of Jensen’s sketches together in a fairly recognizable way.

“I know Jay would kill me for this, but I drove over to Jeff’s house and I found these in his room.”

Katie hesitantly pulled two more sketches from inside her jacket and laid them out on the ground next to the patch-work drafts, they’d carefully reassembled. 

The drawings Katie revealed to the group left everyone speechless for a moment.

The sketches depicted a sleeping Jared, mouth lax and features smoothed out in relaxation, his bed hair fanned out over the pillows in a wild tousle.

The drawings were painfully realistic and emanated a sense of peacefulness… of serenity.

“I think they’re from back when Jared’s arm got grazed during that shooting,“ she pointed at the bandage that Jensen had drawn around Jared’s muscled upper arm, fine pencil strokes shading a dark area where the blood must have soaked through the fabric.

“They are great,” Chris said softly, voice oddly small in the wake of Katie’s revelation. “We’ll send them along with the rest of ‘em.”

“Don’t forget these,” Tom gently reminded and added two more pieces of Jensen’s art to the steadily growing portfolio they’d assembled.

The two drawings were Jensen’s pride and joy.

Tom had sneakily taken them off their living room wall because he knew Jensen was spending the weekend at Matt’s place and he wouldn’t notice them gone until he came back next week.

“And this, don’t forget to add this, either,” Danneel added hastily and pulled the essay she’d written out of her handbag.

“What’s that?” Chris frowned as he took the hardcover-bound book from her hands and ran his callous fingers over the gold-lettered engraving.

 _Mending A Broken Heart_  
by  
Jensen Ackles

“One of the requirements was to write an essay about what inspired you in your life. Jensen wasn’t going to write it himself, so I took the liberty to— you know,” she explained, watching as Chris opened the book and started reading a couple of sentences.

“Well, fuck,” he breathed out and closed the book again. “I’d say we’ve got everything we need.”

 

  ****

Fights were always a blur.

This one was no different.

Jared got his opponent in a steel grip, but when a kick to the shin caught him unaware, he was forced to let go with a grunt.

Guy was a slippery son of a bitch, faster than anyone he’d ever fought before and really good at breaking out of Jared’s holds.

The usual method of _‘distract-hit-kick-knock-out’_ wasn’t going to work with this fucker, so Jared needed to try something else.

He had about two seconds to come up with a new plan, before the guy launched yet another attack, sliding back into his personal space and delivering two quick blows to Jared’s side.

Jared stumbled back just as the guy’s left hand lashed out to catch him on the chin.

A sharp pain exploded in Jared’s jaw and the punch must have been a whole lot harder than he thought, cause the next thing Jared was aware of was that he was doubled in half and spitting a mouthful of blood to the ground.

He blinked, shook his head to try and refocus his blurred vision to get rid of the fucking black spots dancing in the corner of his eyes and the fucker was already moving in again.

The crowd was screaming, frantic at the prospect of seeing Jared loose and in a moment of pain-induced distraction, Jared’s gaze swept out over the mass of people crowding the space around the cage.

And there, right there in the middle of the crowd, Jared caught a familiar face and his heart came to a full stop in his chest.

_No._

_It couldn’t be._

Another blow to the face and Jared was swaying, stumbling to the side, back smashed against the ungiving metal of the rusty bars behind him.

The pain took over every fiber of his awareness, clouding his mind, making him dizzy and Jared’s heart was still racing with the feeling of _Steve’s_ wide-eyed gaze on his skin.

 _Steve._ Steve was here.

It couldn’t be true.

His mind must be playing a crude joke on him.

The gang didn’t know where he was.

Jared had ditched his phone, hadn’t left a note, hadn’t talked to any of his friends in nine fucking months. He had done it so they wouldn’t find him. So none of this would ever touch them.

But now Steve was here, just a couple of feet away, watching as Jared got the living shit kicked out of him. And that wasn’t _acceptable_.

Jared growled and angled his next punch so that it caught his opponent in the rib cage, where one of his earlier blows had caught him at the beginning of the fight.

The air left the guy’s lungs in one whoosh, eyes widening with pain and Jared repeated the attack, following the blow up with a swift kick into the guy’s bruised ribcage.

Fucker gasped and tried to move away and Jared used the chance to catch his own breath, watching his opponent guard his middle where Jared had doubtlessly broken a couple of his ribs just now.

The guy yanked his arms up in an effort to protect his face, but Jared continued to bash his fist into the guy’s injured side until he was choking out blood from a pierced lung and sliding down the rusty metal bars until he his ass hit the floor.

Jared was breathing hard, nostrils flaring and the roar of the crowd didn’t even fully register with him as he turned back towards the spot where he thought he’d seen Steve standing not even a minute ago, only to find the spot empty now.

The sight of Steve gone, punched the air right out of his lungs and Jared didn’t know whether he was supposed to feel disappointed or relieved.

He just knew that he needed to get the hell out of here.

He rushed through the screeching metal gate and tore into the backstage area, only to get caught off guard when a sudden fist- rock-solid and angry, slammed into his face from the side.

It sent him sprawling to the floor, an explosion of hot, white stars flaring behind his eyes and Jared winced when he tried to open his eyes again to look up at his attacker.

“Howdy Jay,” Steve towered over him with, face pale in the fluorescent light of the training hall.

Jared opened his blood-coated lips, only to close them again the next second.

His ears were ringing, his throat was aching and his eyes were filled with tears as he stared up at Steve.

How many fucking times had he imagined to see the bastard again, to share a beer with him and discuss Steve’s latest hookups with him or the new engine they were working on, only to remind himself that he was never going to do any of it again.

And now he was here, in the flesh and with that stupid fucking grin on his face, like they hadn’t been estranged for nine fucking months.

Jared sniffed and spat another glob of blood to the floor before wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

When he held up a hand for Steve to help him up, his friend just stared at him for a moment.

“Really, Jay?” Steve bit out, voice shaking with anger. “I mean, seriously? Not a single word in NINE months? No final note or phone call? _Nothing_?”

Despite his obvious anger, Steve eventually grabbed Jared’s outstretched hand and pulled him up.

“Fuck. You look like fucking shit, man,” Steve snorted when he caught sight of Jared’s face.

Jared breathed, low and shaky and when he smiled, it was the first time in months that he felt something akin to real happiness bloom in his chest. “It’s good to see you, too.”

 

_****_

 

“So, how’d you find me?” Jared asked, as he began unwrapping his knuckles.

Steve was sitting on a chair in the corner of the training hall, lighting up a cigarette and taking a greedy drag.

“Does it matter?” he gave back around a lungful of smoke.

“Not really,” Jared shrugged, because his friends were smart, even if a hell of people didn’t give them credit for it and Chase was a fucking genius when it came to computers.

It probably hadn’t taken much for them to figure out when Jared had made his last bank transaction and where.

Jared looked over at Steve in silence, studying his friend’s features and feeling oddly out of sync after months of not really talking to anyone, of keeping only to himself.

He dropped the bloody bandages into the trash and downed a glass of Tequila before dousing the broken skin around his knuckles with liquor.

He didn’t even grimace when the familiar sting of fire licked at his skin; he just locked his jaw for a second or two and closed his eyes, waiting for the pain to dissipate. 

Steve’s watchful gaze was on him the entire time, heavy and accusing, as the silence between them stretched and became unbearable.

“I suppose you didn’t come here to watch me fight?”

Steve stubbed his cigarette out with a sigh and moved across the room until he was standing right in front of Jared, tall and massive and casting a huge shadow over Jared’s hunched shoulders, impossible to ignore.

“Jensen broke down in class the other day.”

The words were like a sucker-punch to the guts.

Jared felt his heart skip a beat as they sank in.

For a moment he forgot how to breathe; forgot the actual technicalities of dragging oxygen into his lungs because it seemed so fucking minor- so meaningless- compared to what Steve had just revealed.

Averting his gaze, Jared licked his lips and tried to get his racing mind back under control.

“Is he okay?“ Jared’s voice shook a little.

“No,” Steve snorted with a curt shake of his head. “He’s not fucking okay.”

Jared glared up at him.

“Was it the shot wound or—“

“It’s not physical, you goddamn asshole!” Steve snapped, bristling with anger. “He’s killing himself over what happened in that fucking warehouse, beating himself up over what he did in there. Over getting tortured! You think that shit just goes away overnight?”

“Steve, stop it,” Jared breathed out, sounding pained. “Just… _stop_ , okay?”

His heart was painfully loud in his chest and Jared couldn’t fucking _breathe._

“Can’t stand to hear the fucking truth?” Steve bit out harshly, shoving Jared’s shoulder. “Can’t stand to hear that he’s not fucking eating? That he barely speaks to anyone, anymore? That he’s crying himself to sleep at night, only to wake to the sound of his screams the next fucking day?”

Something inside of Jared snapped at the words and the next second he was up on his feet and flipping the small coffee table next to his mattress across the fucking room.

“What the fuck do you want from me? You think I’m not messed up over what happened? You think that I don’t feel guilty for how things ended? That I don’t spend every waking second of my life thinking about him- that I wouldn’t do _anything_ to make it all undone?”

He was breathing heavily through his nose, body quivering from the force of the admission- from letting the words that weighed so heavily on his heart finally out.

Steve’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, eyes ablaze with emotion, but his voice softened with his next words. “Then what are you still doing here?”

“Because I’m the one who caused this!” Jared gave back. “I’m the one responsible. I almost got him killed, Steve and if I don’t stay the fuck away I’m only going to end up hurting him further.”

“My god, are you really that screwed up in the head?” Steve yelled back, shoving Jared back by the shoulders. “Do you seriously have that low of an opinion of yourself?”

Jared huffed out a shaky breath, watery and wet with unshed tears.

He got his own fucking mother killed when he was just a kid.  

Now he had almost done the same thing with Jensen.

What wasn’t to understand about the fact that Jared killed everyone he fucking cared about?

“He’s better off without me,” Jared whispered and damn if it didn’t still hurt to say the words.

“If that’s what you wanna believe, fine,” Steve snorted. “But what about us, huh? What about your fucking friends- your _family_? You don’t think we care about your dumb ass and whether or not you get yourself killed in some stupid fucking shithole in Mexico?”

Jared wanted to reply, but Steve didn’t let him. “You’re a selfish bastard, you know that? I mean, did you ever stop to think about Chad and Sandy in all of this? About the kid she was pregnant with when you decided to fucking run off into the night?”

Jared pressed his lips together, a pang of guilt and longing driving through his heart so forcefully that it nearly sent him on his knees.

He _had_ thought about it.

At night, when his muscles were sore and cramping and when the whole weight of the world had pressed down on his heart, slowly, painfully crushing it as he allowed himself to miss his friends, to remember their faces, their voices, the sound of their laughter.

“It’s a girl, by the way. Her name’s Elle… short for Elizabeth.”

Jared pressed his lips together and took the name in, tears burning hot in his eyes.

“She’s gorgeous,” Steve added, a little softer this time, and Jared gave a watery smile at that.

“Chad bring out the shotgun, yet?” he snorted wetly and looked up at the ceiling because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep the tears at bay if he met Steve’s gaze.

“He’s waiting for when she brings her first boyfriend home,” Steve answered and Jared laughed for real this time, eyes glistening with emotion, because yeah, that sounded like Chad alright.

Steve’s smile faded and then they both grew serious again, the warm feeling slowly dissipating from Jared’s chest when he saw the look in his friend’s eyes.

“Come home with me, Jay,” Steve pleaded softly, brokenly. “We need you.”

“No one needs me,” Jared’s voice grew cold and detached as he took a step back, physically distancing himself from Steve like the closeness, the jokes, and banter was only going to lead him to temptation. “I’m better off on my own, where I can’t hurt the people I love.”

Steve sighed. Then he looked down at the ground, letting a few seconds pass before he found his voice again.

“Look, I didn’t mean to tell you this way,” he said, sounding resigned. “But Jeff’s in prison.”

Jared’s eyes widened; his jaw dropping. “Wha— _how?_ ”

“Mike made it sound like Jeff coerced you or something, man, I don’t even know how he fucking did it… guy’s a fucking genius. He got us all walking off from this like we didn’t get our own hands bloody. But Jeff, you know how he gets, always causing fucking trouble—“

“What are you saying?” Jared snapped impatiently, heart racing in his chest.

Jeff had been the only one in this who did NOT end up killing anyone in that warehouse and he was the one taking the fucking blame? Had he been planning this the entire time?

“Is he hurt?”

When Steve didn’t answer, Jared grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him. “Fucking talk to me, you asshole! What aren’t you telling me?”

“I’m sorry man,” Steve said with tears in his eyes and Jared literally felt like his heart stopped dead in his chest at the words.

_No. No, no, no, no…. it couldn’t be._

_Not him, too._

“There was a riot and Jeff got caught in the middle of it somehow. Someone stabbed him with a shard of glass.”

“Oh god,” Jared choked out brokenly and felt the blood drain from his face as he sank to the floor, shaking all over. “Is he—“

“He made it out alive. But he was asking for you,” Steve further explained. “You need to come home with me, alright? I’m begging you, man, just... just for a day or something.”

With shaking fingers, Jared washed a hand over his mouth and nodded. “Let me get my stuff.”

 

  ****

Jared should have fucking known something was off with the story Steve had told him.

He should have fucking seen the signs for what they were- should have read the nervousness in Steve’s voice, the way he stammered his way through the story about Jeff’s injury.

The way he only brought Jeff up _after_ Jared had declined his first offer to come back home with him like some twisted fucking backup plan, when in reality, he would have never waited so fucking long to tell Jared if Jeff had really been life-threateningly injured.

He should have fucking known.

And yet, nothing could have prepared him for the sight that awaited him when he stepped through the door of his childhood home- Jeff’s now abandoned house in Roxbury- only to get greeted by a group of a dozen people in their messy living room.

They were all there.

Every single one of them.

Chris, Katie, Chase, Genevieve, Chad, and Sandy- holding a very sleepy looking baby in their arms.

Even Jensen’s friends were there; some guy, Jared vaguely remembered having run into in Jensen’s apartment, that red-haired girl with the bunny slippers he’d met in Jensen’s doorway, Mike, and Tom- Tom who had hated him from the very first second they’d met, Tom who’d never thought Jared was good enough for Jensen- even he was there, staring at Jared as if he had come back from the fucking dead or something.

It took about five seconds for Jared to realize what he’d just stumbled in on.

A fucking trap.

That’s what.

Gut clenching in anger, Jared whirled around so fast it caused his head to spin, slamming Steve up against the nearby wall.

“You son of a fucking bitch!” he hissed out with a warning jostle to Steve’s frame, breath coming hot and fast from his nostrils as rage tinged his vision. “You lied to me! You lied to me about Jeff- made he think he almost got fucking killed for some fucking therapy session?! He never even got stabbed, did he?!”

Steve gritted his teeth, eyes fierce as he held Jared’s scolding glower.

“He’s fine. Not a fucking scratch on him.”

Jared felt lightheaded with anger- with _betrayal_ \- at the fact that his friends would lure him back to Boston under the false pretense of Jeff having gotten seriously injured.

You didn’t mess around with that kind of shit- you just _didn’t_.

Still breathing heavily and with the gazes of all his friends- everyone he’d missed so fucking terribly over the past nine months- burning hot and heavy on his skin, Jared let go of Steve and made a start for the door, wanting nothing more but to run for the fucking hills and leave this place behind.

He got as far as to wrap his fingers around the doorknob, before Chris was there, blocking the exit, Genevieve only one step behind, ready to jump in and help Chris in case reinforcement was needed.

_What the actual fuck was going on here?_

“Get out of my fucking way,” Jared hissed, squaring his shoulders.

He wasn’t above throwing punches if that was what it would take to get back out of there.

“No,” Steve said, firmly shaking his head. “You’re not going anywhere. Not until we’ve said what we need to say to you.”

Jared snorted and turned back around, feeling near hysteric with the urge to fucking punch and kick and claw his way out of here.

“What the fuck is this?” he demanded.  “A fucking intervention?”

“You’re damn right, it is,” Chris leaned against the front door, arms crossed over his bulky chest.

Katie stepped forward, into the middle of the room and it wasn’t until Jared actually allowed himself to look at her that he saw the tiny stack of cards she held in her shaking fingers like she was about to hold a speech or something.

His gut clenched with more panic and he took a shaky breath, rolling his eyes, because maybe if he didn’t take this seriously, it wouldn’t hurt too much. Maybe if he kept being a fucking asshole, they’d all just leave and decide he wasn’t worth the fucking trouble.

“Jay…” her voice wavered and Jared felt his throat tighten at the sound of it. “I know you hate this kind of thing, s-so I’ll try to make it short.”

_Here we fucking go._

She paused, took a slow breath and looked up at him, meeting his gaze.

“Three years ago, you were nothing but a stranger to me. You didn’t know me, didn’t know a goddamn thing about my past, and yet you took me under your wings, offered me a job, a home, a _family_ and you never asked for a damn thing in return.”

Jared wanted to protest because Katie had worked hard for them right from the beginning, trying to show what she was capable of- trying to live up to the gang’s expectations and most of all- trying to own her own feathers as part of the team. She had never been a burden or a cause for worry.

She had earned her spot in their family. Jared had merely given her a push in the right direction.

“I know you’ve got that crazy idea stuck in your head that you’re evil, or tainted or something, but all I ever see when I look at you is someone who’d give the shirt off his back for a damn stranger. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that… I love you, Jay.  You’re like that big brother I never had and I’m gonna be damned if I watch you run away from happiness just because you’re too damn stubborn to realize that you deserve it.”

Jared looked away, eyes stinging because that right there wasn’t something he could deal with.

It wasn’t something he wanted to deal with because Jared’s happiness was _Jensen_. And Jensen was better off without him, no matter what. They fucking owed it to him to respect that choice.

But before Jared could utter a response, before he got a chance to say anything in reply to Katie’s speech, Chase stepped up next, obviously next in row.

“Jared. I’m not exactly Jensen’s greatest fan and I’ll probably never be, but I realize that you two shared something that the two of us never did. Actually, I think you and him share something I’m not sure a lot of people on this planet **_ever_** get to share. And you’d be a damn’ fucking idiot to let that slip right out of your fingers.”

Jared couldn’t really remember ever having heard a more genuine thing coming from Chase’s lips.

And it wasn’t just the real affection in his tone that startled him, but the indirect admission that he’d fucked up with that whole voice record and with the way he’d treated Jensen.

“What?” Chase frowned when he noticed Jared’s expression.

“Nothing,” Jared huffed out a snort and shook his head in mild disbelief. “Guess I just didn’t expect this from you, of all people.”

“Well, what can I say,” Chase shrugged with a cheeky grin on his lips. “I figured if you’re willing to turn down a blowjob from someone like me, you’re a lost cause. I mean, you’re hot and all, but I wasn’t going to waste all this glory on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.”

And yeah, that sounded more like the Chase Jared knew.

Steve slipped around Jared and came to stand in front of him. “Guess it’s my turn.”

His own eyes were shimmering with tears and Jared felt a strange cold settle in his chest at what he knew came next. The hint of a smile slowly vanished from his lips as he grew serious again.

“When I was in detox and throwing my fucking guts up in some seedy roadhouse toilet, you stayed with me for eight hours straight, talking me- grounding me- while I was just about ready to give up on myself,” Steve recounted with a sad little glimmer in his eyes, voice wrecked all to hell.

Jared remembered that night in the fucking roadhouse like it was yesterday, remembered how broken Steve was- how he had thought about giving up, about ending it all, and Jared had made it his personal mission to get some sense back into him, just like Steve was doing it for him, now.

“You might not be jonesing for a fix right now, but in a way, you are where I was at that point in my life. And man, I don’t fucking care if it takes eight hours or eight fucking _years_ to convince you, but you belong with Jensen and the only mistake you should blame yourself for was walking away from him when he needed you the most.”

Jared bit down on his bottom lip and washed a hand over his face, lips quivering as the words threatened to overwhelm him.

Chris stepped away from the door as well, clearing his throat a little awkwardly and stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets, visibly uncomfortable with Jared’s full attention turned his way.

He’d always hated to talk in front of people.

“Dude…” Chris started, shaking his head a little and Jared caught a glimpse of wetness in his eyes, too, even though he didn’t make direct eye contact with Jared. “Go and fucking fight for that kid, alright? He’s the best fucking thing that ever happened to you and you know it.”

Jared huffed out a wet little laugh, lips quivering and Chris patted him on the shoulder before stepping back again.

Chad was up next and when he edged closer from where he’d been hidden in the corner of the room, one arm wrapped around Sandy’s shoulder, Jared felt like curling up on the fucking floor.

How on earth did he even deserve to get a pep talk from Chad- of all people- when he had failed the guy over and over again, in too many fucking ways to count?

“Jay,” Chad forced a smile to his lips, but it was a fragile thing, shaky and crumbling. “You’re my best friend in the whole world and fuck me for saying it but I love you, man.”

And there, there went Jared’s carefully crafted poker face and the first tears started falling.

“I left Sandy because I thought she’d be safer without me, even when it killed me to let her go. But Jay… you’ve seen what it did to me. You’ve seen how fucking unhappy I was- how much I suffered from that separation. And now it turns out, Sandy was hurting every bit as fucking much as I was. We were both broken in our own ways, too lost in our grief to realize that the only thing we needed was to sit down and work it out somehow, together.” 

Chad looked back over to Sandy and shared a small smile with her, squeezing her shoulder.

“Now you probably think you’re not good enough or something, that you’re to blame for whatever happened to Jensen in that warehouse. But don’t go making the same fucking mistake I made and let the love of your life walk away because of your own insecurities.”

Jared bit his bottom lip, desperately clinging to that little bit of composure he still possessed.

He felt sore and dizzy and so fucking worn out, both physically and emotionally and he didn’t think he’d ever been more thankful for his friends than in that very moment, but none of that was going to change the fact that he had broken Jensen’s heart.

Jared turned around towards Jensen’s friends and looked at them almost accusingly.

“And what about _you-_ you don’t you have any fucking concerns about this? I mean I’m the reason he almost got killed. What happened to me being low-life scum and Jensen being better off without me? You remember that, don’t you, Tom?”

“Yeah I remember,” Tom gave back.

His face was withdrawn and his voice was subdued, shoulders slumped like someone had taken the fight out of him a long time ago.

It was strange to see him without the usual sneer on his face- without disgust and aversion sparking hot and fiery in his piercing blue eyes.

“But I also remember the past nine months, every goddamn time Jensen cried or threw up or had a panic attack. And I remember that all he ever wanted, all he ever needed or asked for was _you_.”

Jared’s heart throbbed with pain and he sucked in a wet breath.

“He loves you,” Tom said, so calmly- so matter-of-factly, that it startled them all. “He loves you with everything he is and I don’t think he’ll ever stop. That’s all I know and it’s all that matters.”

Jared just shook his head, his vision swimming in and out of focus when Mike stepped forward.

“Jared, let me ask you this,” he asked, voice soft and compassionate. “If you decided to stay away and Jensen eventually got over you- if he ever fell in love again, got married and had a family of his own… wouldn’t you still care about him just the same? Wouldn’t you still love him- even if he no longer shared the same feelings for you?

Jared licked his cracked lips, dry blood still crusting in the corners.

“Yeah,” he rasped out, because no matter how fucking painful the thought of Jensen with someone else was, it didn't make the words less true.

Jared would still give his life for Jensen in a heartbeat, even if Jensen had moved on, even if he had started a new life with someone else.

“So if one of your enemies ever decided to get back at you for something, wouldn’t they still go after Jensen because they knew that nothing could ever bring you to your knees faster than hurting him?”

Jared looked away and nodded, unable tor formulate words around the massive lump in his throat.

“But if you were with him, you’d protect him at all costs, no matter what?”

“Of course.”

“Then out of these two scenarios, do you think Jensen would be safer with or without you?”

Jared washed a hand over his face and let his fingers slide up into his hair, pulling on the strands.

He was left speechless for a second, as he let the words in, as he allowed himself to feel what he’d tried so desperately to fight off and deny in the past nine months of his life.

All the pain and the grief and the heartbreak was let loose now, right here, in the safety of his friends and family members- of the people he depended on- the people who wanted what was best for him.

“What do I do? I mean… where do I… where do I even fucking start?”

“We came up with an idea or two,” Chris grinned and ruffled Jared’s hair before slipping an arm around Jared’s neck and guiding him forward to the doorway.

Genevieve unlocked the front door and gestured for him to follow her outside with a small smile on her face.

And as Jared stepped outside, practically getting dragged into Jeff’s front yard by at least five of his friends at the same time, his eyes suddenly widened when they caught sight of the white tarp that was thrown over what looked suspiciously like a motorcycle in Jeff’s driveway.

Katie jumped up and down with glee, eyes twinkling with so much joy that it made her look younger somehow- like a child on Christmas eve, waiting to unwrap her presents.

Jared didn’t dare to breathe. “Guys, what—“

Before he could finish his question, Chris yanked the tarp off of, revealing their Vincent Black Lightning, 1952, shiny and glorious in her brand-new design with at least a dozen different tattoo designs staring back at Jared from the glossy black varnish.

They were Jensen’s designs- on the front and back fender, the fuel tank, the brake line and gearbox now adorned with Katie’s flower tattoo and Chris’ compass and Jared’s phoenix.

The bike’s exhaust pipes and leather seat were polished and Jared felt himself tear up all over again as he stepped closer to inspect the delicate handiwork, the way Jensen’s carefully crafted designs were completing the design so perfectly, lighting the bike up to new life.

Hours. It must have taken them hours, days, weeks, _months_ to get it all finished.

And they’d done it for him- for _them_.

“I don’t know what to say,” Jared let out in a whoosh, voice thick with emotion.

“Then don’t say anything,” Chris grinned at him.

“Think we’ve done enough talking for a year, man,” Chase shuddered, pretending to be bothered by the rare display of affection they’d gone through as part of their emotional reunion.

“Amen to that,” Katie laughed and pushed Chris to the side before yanking Jared hard against her chest in a bruising hug. “I say we stop this emo-bullshit before we all grow lady parts and let Jay in on our master plan.”

“What plan?” Jared barely got the words out with the way Katie squeezed him.

Chris smirked. “You’ll see."

 

** **

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we're all in some urgent need for these two to get back together, what do you guys say? :) Big thanks goes to my Beta TheBoys! Reviews make my day<3


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for bad language, mentions of past torture and abuse and graphic sexual content. Slight warnings for implied Jensen/OMC.

** **

** **

 

**Open Road  
Chapter 21**

In hindsight, Jensen should have realized that calling Matt was a bad idea.

But in his defense, he had woken from another nightmare and drunk himself into a stupor before dialing Matt’s number and asking him to come over.

Which lead to Matt comforting him, whispering nonsensical bullshit into his ear that was first meant to calm him and then quickly turned into something else entirely.

When Jensen woke up the next morning, Matt was in the kitchen, naked as the day he was born and stacking pancakes on a plate, all the while whistling some happy tune.

Jensen groaned, head pounding so hard he thought it was going to burst. 

Wrapping himself out of the duvet, a wave of nausea hit him, causing his stomach to lurch and gurgle in misery.

 _Holy shit._ He was never going to drink another drop of alcohol in his life.

Raising his heavy eyelids, Jensen swung his bare feet to the floor.

He always got a little sluggish after a night spent drinking, so he wasn’t entirely surprised when the room around him started spinning, almost causing him to lose his balance.

He reached for the wall, hand slipping along the navy blue wallpapers. The colors around him swirled before coming stationary again and Jensen used every piece of furniture he could hold on to, to pull himself forward and push out the door into the living room.

From his vantage point by the doorframe, he could see Matt tampering with their Italian espresso machine and in a moment of post-coital exhaustion Jensen could even let himself enjoy the view; broad shoulders and a muscled back ending in narrow hips and a firm ass.

Matt was built. Not in a bodybuilding type of way, but naturally toned in a way that accentuated his masculinity.

But while Matt was good-looking, he wasn’t who Jensen wanted to wake up next to in bed for the rest of his life.

Damn, his memories of last night were so hazy he couldn’t even remember how they’d gone from talking and crying to having sex.

If it hadn’t been for the bite marks on his neck and the way his ass throbbed with every step he took, Jensen was pretty sure his mind would have suppressed the memories of last night altogether.

As it was, Jensen was painfully reminded of their night together not only by the fact that Matt was standing in the middle of their kitchen and swinging his hips to some fucking Duran Duran song, but also by the fact that he hadn’t bothered to put clothes on.

“Morning,” Matt greeted, apparently having gotten tired of waiting for Jensen to make the first move.

And while Jensen had been able to enjoy the physical merits of Matt’s body just a moment ago, whatever hint of residual attraction he had just felt for the guy went flying out the window the second his bright blue eyes fixated Jensen in the doorway.

There had always been something off with Matt’s eyes, something dangerous in the icy blue of his gaze that made Jensen squirm. There was a cold calculability in them, a hint of cruelty in the cant of his jawbone that Jensen wasn’t entirely sure he was imagining.

For all the fake cavalier act and exaggerated affection, Matt was pretty dominant in bed and the more Jensen withdrew from him, the more demanding he seemed to get.

Jensen even had the matching marks to pair with Matt’s territorial behavior; a throbbing bite mark on his shoulder along with some finger-shaped bruises on his hips and he was starting to think that Matt's tendency to violence wasn't connected to his alcoholism.

“You okay?” Matt asked, smile faltering a bit when he notices Jensen’s hesitancy. 

Jensen continued to look at him for a moment, shuffling his feet against the wooden parquet.

He was only wearing a pair of low sitting slacks, hadn’t even bothered to throw on a shirt before coming out here, but with Matt’s hungry gaze trailing over his chest, he instantly regretted his choice.

They should have moved past the stage of awkwardness at this point, but they really hadn’t.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he croaked, voice hoarse from all the noise he’d made the night before.

He felt heat rise to his cheeks at the thought.

“You…uh, you didn’t have to do all this.”

“I wanted to,” Matt shrugged, like the fact that their entire dinner table was loaded with food wasn’t weird.

Like they were a loving couple instead of two severely messed-up guys who sought comfort and distraction in each other and found neither.

But a romantic breakfast couldn’t have been further from Jensen’s mind at the moment and that wasn’t even factoring in the way the smell of pancakes was irritating his sensitive stomach.

“Listen, Matt, I’m not sure I can stomach anything after—“

“Drowning half a bottle of Fireball?” Matt finished with a teasing little grin on his lips. “Yeah, take it from someone who knows, you won’t find the answer to your problems at the bottom of a liquor bottle.”

Jensen was starting to feel queasy and his skin was tingling with the urge to either run or kick Matt out; either way, he needed for Matt to _leave_.

He was starting to get the impression that inviting Matt over had been a bad idea of epic proportions- as in, _you-really-really-shouldn’t-have-done-that_ epical.

Jensen didn’t want to go there mentally but had been so drunk last night, so completely out of it with grief, that the fact that Matt had still slept with him was borderline disturbing.

“Why don’t you go and sit down. I’m almost done over here,” Matt said with a smile.

Jensen opened his mouth in protest; his resolve to get rid of Matt finding strength in the realization that he had gone too far last night when Matt suddenly backed him up against the kitchen counter, trapping him in place.

“What’s going on with you?” Matt breathed hotly against the side of Jensen’s face, nose dragging down Jensen’s cheek to his neck and lips coming to hover over his pulse point.

His hands settled possessively on either side of Jensen’s hips, trapping him in place.

“You’re not regretting this, are you?” Matt’s tone of voice suggested that Jensen shouldn’t answer that question with anything but firm denial. “Cause last night, you didn’t sound opposed to me being here. In fact, I remember you asking for me to stay, to make you _feel good_.”

“Look,” Jensen started, wriggling one hand between them so he could push it against his chest. “You should probably go. Tom and Mike will be home soon and I’d rather you’re gone by then.”

It was an excuse and not a particularly good one, but Jensen couldn’t very well say _‘I feel like you’re overstepping your boundaries’_ after he had practically jumped the guy’s bones the night before.

In his drunken state, he’d probably figured that Matt expected some kind of treat in return for coming over in the middle of the night to wipe his tears and tell him that things would be alright.

Or maybe he had simply tried to erase the image of Jared from his mind.

Whatever the reason was, Matt was here now, hard and firm against Jensen’s hand and he didn’t back off one inch from where he was standing.

Instead, his piercing blue eyes took on a dangerous glint.

“You’re playing with me,” Matt bit out, his voice and eyes hardening. “You don’t think I notice the way you keep your eyes closed when I kiss you? The way you keep pretending you’re with someone else? I’m tired of being a replacement, Jensen. I won’t accept it.”

His hold on Jensen was no longer just restraining but painful, digging into his skin.

And in a normal world, Jensen would have punched the guy’s lights out at this point, would have kicked and clawed his way out of Matt’s hold, but Jensen’s world wasn’t _normal_ and so he was frozen in place, unable to breathe or think or do anything to defend himself.

His body was sore in more ways than he could count; head still pounding, stomach cramping with swirls of nausea, and for the life of him, Jensen couldn’t seem to get his breathing under control.

He couldn’t help but think that if he struggled he was only going to make things worse.

So when Matt claimed Jensen’s mouth in a branding kiss, he forced himself to hold absolutely still.

Prying Jensen’s lips open with his own, Matt started thrusting his feverishly hot tongue into his mouth, dominating in a way that made Jensen gasp.

Spurred on by the muffled sound, Matt grabbed a fistful of his hair to hold him in place as he ravaged his mouth and all Jensen wanted to do was to bite the guy’s fucking tongue off.

When Matt finally eased off of him, he looked decidedly more satisfied now that he had staked his claim on Jensen or whatever the fuck he thought he was doing.

“There,” Matt wiped a thumb over Jensen’s bottom lip with a fond smile. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?"

“Are you drinking again?” Jensen asked and then decided he didn’t care.

“You know what, don’t tell me,” he pushed off the kitchen counter.

“You need to go,” he breathed out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, trying to erase the taste and feel of Matt from his lips.

Whatever Matt was going to respond was lost when the door to Jensen’s apartment was pulled open, keys jingling in the lock as Mike pushed through the door, shaking raindrops from his coat.

Jensen stumbled back, suddenly blatantly aware of what a sight they both made; Matt standing there naked and Jensen with his slacks riding low on his hips, lips bright red and slightly kiss-swollen.

“Hey,” Mike greeted before looking up and Jensen could see the exact second when Mike caught on with the program, doing a double-take when he noticed what he’d just walked into.

“Oh god. I’m sorry! I didn’t know you guys were—“

_Yeah, no hard feelings for breaking that one up, Mike._

“What’s wrong?” came Tom’s voice from somewhere behind Mike, still partially hidden in the hallway and Jensen would have laughed at the way Matt tripped over his own feet in his haste to cover his crotch with a dish towel, if he hadn’t been so fucking pissed at the guy.

“It’s cold out here,” Tom pushed further inside, only to freeze in place the next second, eyes widening. “Oh…wow, you’re… you’re not wearing clothes.”

Jensen rolled his eyes. How Tom made it into Harvard with his lack of verbal fluency would always be beyond him.

“I was actually just about to—“ Matt stammered.

“He was just about to go,” Jensen finished in a hard tone, not leaving room for protest.

He rounded the kitchen island, making a straight line for his room and throwing the door closed behind him with a resounding echo.

He didn’t give a single fuck about how Matt was going to get back to his dorm room without clothes.

But he hoped Matt froze his balls off on his way there.

 

 

 

“Hey.”

Jared looked up from where he was sitting on his shop seat, pressing the dents out of the gas tank of his Harley.

Chad was walking up to him, carrying a sleepy Elizabeth in his arms and Jared instantly wiped the grease from his hands before getting up from his seat.

“Hey there, sweetheart,” he softened his voice and gently untangled Elizabeth from Chad before lifting her up into his own arms. “How are we doing today? You being a good girl for your daddy?”

“Dude,” Chad chuckled, watching the way Jared’s large palm cradled his daughter’s head with an unfamiliar tenderness. “It will never stop being weird to see you like this.”

“Like what?” Jared frowned, rocking her gently when she started whining softly against his neck. “Hey now, I’ve got you, princess. Go back to sleep.”

The startled look on Chad’s face continued to grow, incredulity bleeding into his gaze.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jared rolled his eyes at Chad. “She’s your daughter… I’m _bonding_.”

“Yeah, no, go for it, I mean I can see that you’re— whatever the hell it is that you’re doing,” Chad gestured vaguely at Jared’s form and his smirk grew.

Elizabeth snuggled into the nape of Jared’s neck, right into that warm spot between his collarbone and his throat, where she could feel the beat of his heart and then she settled down again, her quiet snuffles turning into even breaths as she fell asleep in his arms.

Jared barely dared to breathe not wanting to wake her up again.

He couldn’t help the fond smile that grew on his lips at the way her tiny fingers curled into his shirt, at the feel of her feather light weight against his chest.

“You’re good with her,” Chad observed quietly. “You’ll be a good father one day.”

And just like that, the smile vanished from Jared’s lips.

“Uh… maybe you should—“ he took a step forward, one hand cradling the back of her head while the other one was holding her up for Chad.

Chad sighed and stepped forward to pick her up again. “I didn’t mean to—“

“It’s okay,” Jared quickly reassured before picking his hammer back up from his work bench.

“You don’t think this is gonna work, do you?” Chad inquired softly. “The thing with Jensen?”

Jared sat back down on the shop seat with a sigh, running his callous fingers over his bike.

“What if he moved on?” Jared asked. “What if I’m too late?”

Chad looked at Jared intently for a second.

“Then you’ll just have to fight a little harder to win him back. It’s what you do, right?” Chad asked with a pointed stare at Jared’s busted knuckles. “Fighting?”

Jared let out a soft snort. “There’s never been so much at stake before.”

“Just makes the battle more important,” Chad countered with a soft shrug.

Jared sighed. “When did you grow up so much, man? I still remember a time when you thought doing wheelies on the highway was a good idea.”

Chad laughed softly and shook his head. “Don’t worry. You’ll get there, too.”

 

 

 

“So Matt and you, you’re back together?“

Jensen was a patient guy, he really was, but he had woken to the mother of all fucking hangovers this morning only to get his face eaten by Matt in their kitchen afterward and if there was one thing that could possibly make this day any worse it, was having to talk to Tom about what happened.

“Listen, Tom, it’s been a long day. Can we just- not?”

Tom nervously chewed his lip.

“Yeah, sure. We’ll just talk about it another time, then,” he babbled, nearly knocking over the floor lamp in his haste to get away.

Jensen put his newspaper aside with a sigh. “What’s going on with you?” 

“What do you mean?” Tom asked, sounding like a boy that got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Nothing's going on."

“You guys have been acting weird around me lately.”

Jensen wasn’t stupid.

The way his friends had kept sneaking out at night without telling him where they ran off to or what they were doing definitely fell into the _‘weird’_ department.

Danneel had asked him about his design work and shortly after that the sketches had vanished from their living room walls and if they thought that Jensen had lost half his functioning brain cells along with his heart, they were wrong.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?”

While his friends were definitely planning something, Jensen wasn’t sure he wanted to know about it.

They might have signed him up for an online dating platform or something.

When Tom paled and started squirming in his seat, Jensen knew that a speed-dating thing would have been a pleasure in comparison to whatever his friends must have _really_ done.

“Okay, you’re starting to freak me out, here. What did you guys do?”

“Do?” Tom sputtered, sounding freaked. “We didn’t do anything.”

“Fine,” Jensen said. “Then I’m sure you’ll have no trouble explaining where my sketches went.”

“Sketches,” Tom parroted again, pretending to think of what Jensen was talking about when they both knew he was only buying time to come up with an excuse.

“Yes, sketches, Tom. Simply executed, preliminary drawings, portraying the essential features of a motif. Or in other words, the two drawings you framed and put up on our living room wall.”

Tom held on for maybe two more seconds before his composure cracked.

“Okay, listen. There’s something we need to talk to you about and I would have told you earlier, but then Matt was here and you know how I feel about Matt since that night when he—“

“Tom,” Jensen interrupted softly. “Get to the point.”

“So Danni and Chris came up with this idea…“

Jensen’s heart made a leap in his chest.

“Danni and _Chris_ ,” he repeated slowly, eyebrows cocked. “As in Christian Kane? As in _Jared’s_ Chris?”

Jensen’s voice was rising up to a thunderous growl, his heartbeat still picking up speed.

“Jensen, listen—“

“Alright. What the actual _fuck_ is going on, here?”

He couldn’t believe Danni and _Tom,_ of all people, would be in touch with Chris and not tell him about it, planning shit behind his back- s _trategizing._

Whatever this was about, he was already over it.

Tom stared down at his lap. “We were going to tell you together. But I royally screwed this up, so…”

He pulled a pristinely white envelope from his laptop satchel, stamped and looking all official-like.

“We figured you shouldn’t put your dreams on hold because of what happened, so we—” Tom swallowed; eyes downcast. “We decided to give you a nudge in the right direction.”

Jensen’s heart was in his throat when he looked down at the envelop in his hands and read the address printed on it.

 **Yale University** **_New Haven, Connecticut 06520_ **

For a second or two, Jensen didn’t fully comprehend what he was staring at.

Then it suddenly hit him.

“You applied for me?” he croaked out.

Tom nodded; guilt and worry marring his features.

“Look. In the past year, all you ever talked about was that art project. And we figured you’d still want to go, even if you couldn’t gather enough energy to actually apply for it yourself right now.“

“Who is _‘we’_?” Jensen demanded harshly.

The question that Jensen was _really_ asking without articulating it, was hanging unspoken in the air between them.

_Was Jared with you? Is he back?_

Tom’s eyes glinted with insecurity like there was something else he wasn’t telling Jensen.

“We used the sketches you drafted for the project. Put them all back together. Danneel wrote a grade-A application letter about what we all thought inspired you as an artist. The gang… _Jared’s_ gang helped us. It was them who came up with the idea.“

Jensen made a sound between a hysteric laugh and a sob.

“Jared wasn’t there?”

“No, he wasn’t. But listen, Jensen, it doesn’t matter. You knew that you wanted to go to Yale way before you knew Jared. You’re so talented, you’re gifted and passionate about what you’re doing. This is what _you_ ’ve always wanted. Jared’s got nothing to do with this.”

Jensen looked down at the letter and then shook his head, slowly, like he was only just beginning to realize something for himself.

Lots of things had changed since that night in the warehouse and Jensen was no longer that naïve guy who dreamed of becoming an artist.

These days, he was afraid of his own shadow, broke down in class and started crying at the most random situations.

How was he supposed to go to art school, when he couldn’t even pick up a pencil without it reminding him of all the people he had lost? Of all the terrible things that had happened?

“You’re right,” he snorted, running shaking fingers over his face. “It’s what I _wanted._ Past tense.”

“Woah, hold on. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t want this,” Jensen forced out through clenched teeth. “Not anymore.”

He tried to push past Tom, but Tom held him back with a hand against his chest.

“Then what _do_ you want, Jensen? To continue wallowing in self-pity until the end of days? I mean are you seriously going to give up your dream just because you got your heart broken?”

“I—“

“You’re a coward, you know that?” Tom cut him off before he got a chance to reply.

Jensen’s eyes widened. “I’m a what?”

“You heard me,” Tom snorted, shaking his head like he was the one who had just been insulted. “I’ve bent over _backward_ to help you in these past months. I’ve tried everything to make you feel better and god knows I’d do it all again if that’s what you needed, but this letter—“ Tom stabbed his finger against Jensen’s chest, pinning the envelope between them. “This fucking letter amounts to _months_ of careful planning to make your dreams come true. To make you get a shot at that education you’ve always wanted- to make you live the art you’ve always been so passionate about. This letter is your whole future sealed in an envelope and you’re seriously standing there, telling me that you no longer want it?”

Jensen pressed his lips together and stared off into the distance.

There was a lump the size of Texas in his throat and it kept growing.

“Jensen, you are the smartest, strongest, most genuine person I have ever known and I don’t think there’s a goddamn thing on earth you cannot do. Don’t you _dare_ to run from this just because you’re afraid of the changes it might bring about.”

Jensen sucked in a wet breath and shook his head. “What if it’s a refusal?”

“Are you kidding me?” Tom snorted. “They’d be stupid not to take you.”

Jensen gave a weak smile at that.

There was still was a whole lot about this situation that he didn’t understand or agree upon, but Tom was right about him still wanting this, more than anything.

Even it was painful to admit it because the project was almost synonymous to Jared and the _Black Legion_ in Jensen’s head.

Too many memories were connected to the artwork Jensen had wanted to submit at Yale.

 _Painful_ memories.

But that didn’t mean Jensen wouldn’t learn to get over it somehow. That he couldn’t still have this.

Jensen’s fingers were shaking so badly when he opened the letter, it was hard to make out the fine print on the paper.

He stumbled over the words in his haste to read them.

“So?” Tom asked excitedly. “What does it say?”

Jensen let out an incredulous little laugh.

“They’ve invited me for an interview.”

 

Jensen was sitting in front of a small jury of three people, consisting of Yale’s Dean, Associate Dean and Director of Graduate studies.

It was a familiar scenario, reminding him of the times when he had still been underage and already attending lectures that were way above what any fourteen-year-old high school student should be thinking about and still passing the bar, excelling in his studies, breaking records wherever he went.

He had never stopped feeling self-conscious and strangely vulnerable under the assertive eye of an application committee like this one, had never stopped doubting his own capabilities and talents when they were suddenly scrutinized and examined by strangers.

In fact, Jensen hated interviews of any kind because they made him feel uncomfortable in his own skin like all he had accomplished in life _still_ wasn’t enough.

Like they were searching for character traits and talents Jensen didn’t possess, instead of valuing his actual strengths and past achievements.

So when he took a seat in Yale’s graduation office, palms sweaty and muscles twitching in a way that was sure to give away his panic away, Jensen started thinking that maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all.

Maybe he shouldn’t have come here.

One of the women sitting across from him, an elderly lady with a sour expression on her face, opened up his portfolio, paging through his submitted artwork.

Even from across the seat, Jensen could see the frayed edges of the sketches that had been ripped apart before getting reassembled and taped back together by his friends.

Jensen felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of his own drawings, so irreparably damaged despite his friends’ best efforts and felt a sudden heat rise to his cheeks in embarrassment.

It was hard to believe they’d even invited him for an interview with a portfolio like this.

Jensen chewed on his bottom lip, heart beating so frantically in his chest, he thought it was going to explode from nervous excitement.

Why weren’t they saying anything?

Did they wait for him to take the initiative?

“Mr. Ackles,” Professor Gregory, a man in his late fifties, cleared his throat and shoved his glasses up his nose with one finger.

Jensen rubbed his sweaty palms on his suit pants and tried to smile at the man, aware of the fact that it must have seemed a bit strained to the stranger in front of him.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but the work you’ve submitted is very unconventional.”

Jensen ducked his head and gave a shy smile.

“I guess you could call it that, yes.”

“As we understand there is one last art submission you’d like to present to us today?” the Professor continued hesitantly, exchanging a brief glance with one of his colleagues.

Jensen’s expression shifted into a frown, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

Had his friends added one last piece to the portfolio without telling him?

Before he could ask for a clarification, a soft tapping on the door captured all of their attention and Jensen twisted around in his chair when the secretary stuck her head through the door.

“Miss Clark, if you don’t mind, we’re in the middle of an interview—“

“I’m sorry for the interruption,” the secretary blushed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“There’s someone out in the hallway and this gentleman… he’s very… _persistent_.”

Jensen’s frown deepened at that, a vague feeling of dread slowly sinking in his chest.

Professor Gregory’s expression turned from skeptical to mildly annoyed by the interruption.

He set Jensen’s application map aside in a no-nonsense manner.

“Well, I’m afraid the gentleman will have to wait until we’re finished—“

“And I’m afraid I won’t be able to wait that long,” a third voice suddenly chimed in and every goddamn cell in Jensen’s body froze at the sound of it.

It left him completely winded, all the air leaving his lungs in one swoop.

He was still breathing, but somehow the oxygen didn’t go in like his lungs were surrounded by metal bands.

He went rigid in his seat, completely frozen in place at the sight of Jared- his _Jared_ \- the Jared he’d been dreaming about every goddamn night since he’d left nine and a half months ago- standing in the doorway of the Yale Graduation Office like he had any goddamn fucking reason to be here. Like not a day had passed since they’d last seen each other in that hospital.

Jared had one palm splayed against the office door as if to keep it open in case the secretary tried to force it to shut again and every line of his face was etched with determination.

Whatever he’d come here to say or do, Jensen realized that he wasn’t going to leave before he’d gotten it off of his chest.

And Jensen wanted to be furious- he really, _really_ did.

He had thought about seeing Jared again at some point, had imagined what it would be like to be suddenly confronted with him and in his mind, he had always been livid- spewing out angry accusations and quite possibly punching Jared in the face, but right now…

It was like the fight had been sucked right out of him.

Like the ground had been ripped out beneath Jensen’s feet and sent him into a free fall.

Because Jared was right here, in this room, with his stupid hair in a wild tousle and his eyes dancing with sparks of green and swirls of brown and wearing a fucking _suit_.

He was wearing a suit like some freaking businessman because Katie or Chris probably told him that he couldn’t show up at Yale in a smudged wife-beater, looking like he’d just gotten released from a max security prison without a goddamn penny to his name.

Which was ridiculous because Jared didn’t _do_ suits; his character was too unique, too individual to be trapped in suit pants and a dress shirt and maybe under different circumstances Jensen would have pointed it out to him but not right now, with his heart lodged somewhere in his throat and his jaw hanging open.

Jared looked straight at him, then, like he could somehow hear what Jensen was thinking and Jensen’s heart clenched in his chest, tight and painful like an invisible hand had wrapped its fingers around the muscle and tried to squeeze the life from it.

Jared tried for a smile but his lips quivered.

“Jensen,” he said, his voice filled with so much pain that Jensen had to look away for a moment, trying to rein his own emotions in. 

Jensen didn't think he would have been able to return the greeting, even if he tried.

Professor Heath, the associate Dean of the Art Program, narrowed her eyes at Jared in disapproval. “Are you aware that we are in the middle of an application interview? I’m going to have to ask you to leave and come back once we’re done, here, Mr.—“

“Padalecki,” Jared supplied in a rush, looking flustered.

And Jensen just couldn’t stop staring, couldn’t take his eyes off of him for even just a second.

Because there were fading bruises around Jared's left eye socket and his knuckles were wrapped in a bandage, which meant he'd gotten beaten.

His features were sharper somehow like he’d lost weight, cheeks hollowed out and cheekbones more pronounced, but at the same time, it also seemed like he’d gained more muscle mass, which didn’t make any sense.

His hair was longer, almost at shoulder length and the long curls framed his face in a way that favored his bone structure.

He was _beautiful._

Even more so than when Jensen had last seen him all these months ago.

And how often had Jensen wished for Jared to just show up like this? Completely unexpected and with that dimpled smile and the puppy-dog eyes that meant he’d screwed up royally and he knew it, but it was alright because he was here to apologize- to explain- and they could still make it work somehow, they could still go back to the way things were.

It was in his weakest moments, with his phone clutched to his chest and fat, ugly tears running down his face as the broken sobs clawed at his throat, that Jensen allowed himself to think about a fairytale reunion- about the two of them running at each other in slow motion and kissing passionately in front of a whole bunch of clapping bystanders.

But this wasn’t wishful thinking.

This wasn’t some fever dream born of broken-heartedness and desperation.

This was _reality._

This was Jensen’s dream of getting into Yale’s Art School, jeopardized by a six-foot-four guy with tear-filled eyes and a shaky smile, having the worst timing, _ever_.

“Well, Mr. Padalecki, would you be so kind to tell us what this urgent matter is about?”

Jared didn’t take his eyes off of Jensen, even when he was being directly addressed by one of the professors.

He looked at Jensen like he was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on; like he hadn’t just awkwardly crashed an application interview in one of America’s most prestigious universities.

“I… uh,” Jared blinked and then swallowed, looking strangely out of place under the watchful gaze of three professors and one very-stunned Jensen.

“I’m not really good at this whole ‘talking’ thing, but…” Jared took a step inside the room and squared his shoulders as he seemed to regain some of his confidence and self-control. “I’m a mechanic. And I met Jensen about a year ago at a biker show in South Boston.”

Professor Heath’s eyes narrowed even further as if the mere nature of his profession offended her. “I don’t see how this is of any relevance.“

“Please, just give me two minutes of your time,” Jared sent her a pleading look, putting all of his heart into the expression and some of the harsh disapproval in the professor’s gaze drained from her eyes. “It’s all I need, I promise. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

There was a beat of silence and Jared had his answer.

He gave them a thankful little twitch of his lips before continuing.

“Jensen told me about his passion for art and it was easy to see how important drawing was to him- how much of his soul he put into his work. To be honest, I think seeing him draw… hearing him talk about his art project and how he had used art as a coping mechanism- a way to turn negative feelings into positive ones and keep himself grounded- I think that was the first time I realized that I…”

Jensen’s breath hitched when Jared’s voice trailed off.

His skin was tingling, the urge to just pack his things and **_run_** suddenly becoming more apparent.

He felt like he was either going to throw up or start crying, either of which was probably not the best thing to do during an interview.

“That he was someone _special_ ,” Jared finished in a softer voice.

And it sounded like he had meant to say something else, the short pause most definitely used to rephrase whatever he’d meant to say in his head.

Jensen felt relief flood him from head to toe, so fierce and powerful that it made him dizzy.

He wasn’t sure how he would have reacted if Jared had actually said whatever he had originally intended to say out loud.

“I offered for him to come to the garage, for inspiration at first, but eventually it was because I enjoyed his company. Then I came up with the idea to involve Jensen in a project- a project to develop a design for the Vincent Black Lightning which is one of the most sought-after vintage bikes in history. He started drafting sketches, one more amazing than the other, but things got _complicated_ between us. And the project was never finished.”

Jensen would have rolled his eyes at the word _‘complicated’_.

Someone had taken out cigarettes on Jensen’s skin and had nearly forced him shoot Jared in the chest in some twisted, mind-fucked version of Russian Roulette.

They had both been _tortured_. Both mentally and physically. They had both _killed_.

What had happened to them wasn’t just complicated.

It had been traumatizing.

_Destructive._

Jared’s eyes flickered down to the ground, his voice low and gentle in a way it rarely ever got. “Jensen didn’t know I was coming today. We haven’t seen each other in a while.”

Jensen’s heart was racing, palms sweaty as he dug his fingers into the armrests of the wooden chair he was sitting on.

He could feel the eyes of the entire committee on him, felt like they could see right through him to the core of his broken heart as it hammered away in his chest.

“But my friends and I decided that this art portfolio needed one final piece to be completed.”

Jensen let out a stuttered breath, quiet and shocked.

And then he knew, without a doubt, why Jared had come here today.

“I know I probably got no right to ask this of you,” Jared continued softly, directing his words at the committee. “But I brought the Black Lightning here. She's right down in that parking lot and she turned out better than I could have ever imagined. And that’s all _because_ of Jensen. Not just because he’s incredibly talented, but because he put so much love and thought into every single one of his drawings- because there’s a story to be told in every sketch he’s ever drawn, every pencil line, every smudge of charcoal… So before you make up your mind on whether you take him into your program or not, I’m asking you to take a look at this bike. That’s all. Just one look."

There was more silence after Jared’s speech.

Then the Dean of the Art Program turned her attention onto Jensen. He could feel her burning stare on his skin, hot and heavy like she tried to see right into his soul with X-ray vision.

“Mr. Ackles, can you confirm that you’ve worked on a project together with—“ she searched her brain for Jared’s last name and came up empty.

Jensen was frozen in place, unable to communicate with words.

He panicked for a second because he was going to have to _actually_ talk to the committee if he wanted to get into their program, but Jared was here, not even four feet away from where Jensen sat and somehow that made it impossible for him to get the words out.

“Mr. Ackles? Are you feeling alright?”

Unbidden, the words that had been exchanged a thousand times between Jared and him, came to his mind.

_Do you trust me? Are you with me?_

Jensen took a deep breath and gave a jerky nod.

 

 

 

The Black Lightning had turned out more beautifully than Jensen could have ever imagined.

It took every ounce of self-control Jensen possessed not to start bawling the second Jared pulled off the white tarp and presented her to the small group of professors.

Every sketch Jensen had ever drawn, every tattoo of every gang member he had so carefully crafted and reconstructed with his hands, was now displayed on the bike’s black varnish, staring back at Jensen like a stark reminder of all the friends he had lost… of all the good times they’d shared.

The flowers from Katie’s back were now blossoming across the bike’s rear fender, colorful and exotic and so much like her that it made his throat close up.

Chris’ nautical star was welded into the silver front bender, protecting the extended front wheel of the bike and Steve’s intricate tribal design was now decorating the bike’s black gas tank, silver lines running in and out of each other like a mass of twirling snakes.

And on the fairing, right in the middle of the bike, was Jared’s phoenix, wings spread out to both sides and rising out of a pile of ashes and flames blazing in the back.

_What they said about me, about me being a bad influence… it’s true, Jensen._

_I destroy everything I fucking touch._

How often had Jensen run his fingers over the dark ink in awe, traced the phoenix’ tail feathers with light touches that caused Jared to shiver and his eyes to darken?

How often had Jensen’s gentle ministrations led to passionate kisses and more?

The Black Lightning was no longer “just” a motorcycle.

It was a piece of art that connected a group of people who couldn’t have been more different if they tried, and who had still connected on a very deep and intrinsic level.

It was a manifestation of everything Jensen had gained and lost again in under a years’ time.

And ultimately, it was a reminder of everything and everyone Jensen had desperately tried to forget.

“I don’t understand much about motorcycles,” one of the professors commented drily, huddled in his tweed coat as he circled the bike appreciatively. “But this is a beautiful piece of work.”

He looked up at Jared but Jared shook his head and pointed at Jensen.

“Don’t look at me. It was Jensen’s idea, his design.”

“Well, maybe we should head back inside; get down to the actual interview now that we’ve seen your opus magnum, Mr. Ackles. We’ve got a few more questions for you.”

“Okay,” Jensen answered in a small voice, even when his limbs felt leaden and heavy.

He was all choked up and he had absolutely no clue how he was going to answer the rest of their questions in the state he was in, with every cell of his body, every fiber of his mind and soul, thrumming with confusion and anger and heartbreak.

“Could you give me one minute alone with him?” Jared asked the committee and Jensen actually cringed at the question, his heart speeding up at the prospect of being alone with Jared.

“Of course.”

They all moved back inside, leaving Jensen and Jared to themselves.

And Jensen’s urge to _run_ grew stronger, to a point where it was almost unbearable.

He was trembling, whether it was from the cold or the frantic beat of his heart, he couldn’t know.

His nose was stuffy and his eyes were red-rimmed and filled with so much _hurt_ and he hated himself once again for being so weak and vulnerable when he wanted to be furious, instead.

It would be so much easier if he could be angry and righteous.

If he could snap at Jared and yell at him and take his goddamn head off for all the misery Jared had put him through by simply taking off without as much as a glance back.

But instead, here he was, arms slung around his middle and eyes staring sightlessly at a spot in the distance to keep himself from completely falling apart.

“Jensen,” Jared said his name like a prayer.

Jensen’s reaction was automatic, like two opposing poles of a magnet, he stumbled back, distancing himself from Jared and whatever else he was going to say.

A flicker of hurt crossed Jared’s eyes at Jensen’s rejection.

“Jensen, I’m so fucking _sorry_.”

Jared’s voice broke and only then Jensen dared to look up and meet his teary gaze straight-on.

“Yeah,” he was surprised to hear his own voice, shaky and soft, barely more than a whisper.

Where had he been when Jensen had been dreamt of that night in the warehouse?

When he’d awoken to the sound of his own horrified screams and the image of Jared’s lifeless eyes staring back at him?

When he’d thrown up every goddamn thing he’d eaten because the metallic taste of meat had reminded him of the way Lucian’s blood had spattered his face?

Where the fuck had Jared been when he had gone to physiotherapy and to the therapist?

When he needed to relearn how to use his left hand again?

When the pain in his spleen got so bad that he passed out from it? 

Maybe Jensen couldn’t physically get himself to punch Jared in the face and tell him to stick his fucking apology and his bike and all of his too-little-too-late speeches about love and friendship up his ass, but he could at least make him understand that there would be no easy forgiving and forgetting what Jared had done to him.

For running out on him, when Jensen had needed him the most.

“I’m sorry, too,” Jensen’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Jared’s face fell, every line of his features crumbling with heartbreak.

“Jen,” Jared’s tone wavered. “Please just let me explain—“

He made another start forward, but Jensen had already turned around and was moving towards the university entrance.

Tears were spilling hot down his cheeks as the heavy oak door closed behind his back, cutting them off from each other for good.

 

 

 

His friends were all waiting for him when Jensen arrived at home.

They looked at him expectantly, wearing hopeful expressions and reassuring smiles on their faces.

Jensen took off his coat, eyes red-rimmed and sore from the six-hour long drive back home, he’d spent bawling his fucking eyes out.

“Hey,” Tom got up from the couch, expression growing concerned when he saw the expression on Jensen's face. “What happened? Did it not go over well?”

Jensen let out a humorless laugh at that.

 _‘Not well’_ was one way to put it.

“Did you know?” Jensen asked, fixating Tom with a glower.

His friends were quiet and Jensen's heart squeezed with pain at the stab of betrayal he felt- a jolt of pain shooting straight through his chest.

“You _knew_ ,” he accused. “You _knew_ he was going to be there and you let me walk straight into that?”

“Jen—“ Tom stepped forward, reaching out to touch his shoulder, but Jensen shoved him back, hard.

“Get your fucking hands off me.”

 

 

 

 

Chris knew that things had not gone as expected the second Jared kicked the bike stand off the Lighting with so much force that it nearly sent the bike toppling to the ground.

“Dude!” Chris scolded.

That fucker _knew_ he was sitting on fifty thousand dollars and he still seemed intent on breaking the fucking thing apart. “Go easy on the merchandise, alright? Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

His heart sank when he saw the withdrawn expression of badly-masked hurt on Jared’s face.

The mild annoyance in his gaze was quickly replaced by sympathy and he let out a soft sigh.

“Guess it didn’t go over well, huh?”

Jared shot him a glare that meant he was this close to beating Chris up if he didn’t shut up _right_ now.

“You didn’t seriously expect it to be that easy, right?” he asked softly, trying for a smile.

“Hey, how’d it go?” Katie stuck her head through the garage’s gate only to have the happy smile slipping from her lips the next second when she took in Jared’s posture- the slumped line of his shoulders, the look of raw devastation in his hazel eyes.

She bit her lower lip, looking disappointed and sad.

“He probably just needs some time to—“ Katie started and then halted her own voice when she noticed the way Jared looked at her like her words were only making it worse.

“I’m sorry, Jay,” she finally whispered, offering up a piteous smile.

“Yeah,” Jared said softly. “That’s what he said, too.”

Chris exchanged a disheartened look with Katie and slipped an arm around Jared’s shoulder.

They had known that this part was going to be the hardest.

“It will take time, alright?” Chris winked at him. “He’ll get around eventually. Maybe we need to get a little bit more creative.”

Katie smirked at that.

They knew Jensen well enough to expect a few difficulties along the way.

They had come up with an idea on how to move on from here.

 

 

 

On Monday morning, Jensen awoke to the exotic scent of citrus and rain in his bedroom.

He stepped outside in his boxers and then proceeded to nearly have a heart attack at the sight that awaited him in the living room. 

Danneel was sitting at the couch table; an open book in her lap and chewing on her pen.

But that wasn’t what startled him.

“What the hell?” Jensen muttered and took a step forward into his living room, or rather, the exotic jungle of flowers it had become.

Wherever he looked, lining every shelf on the wall and covering the floor, the tabletops, and even the freaking kitchen counter, were flowers.

Field flowers. It must have been easily hundreds of them.

Poppy and daisies and lilac arranged in nice little bouquets and strewn across the floor.

Jensen stared at them for a moment, blinking his eyes at the dorm that had been turned into an enchanted forest overnight.

Heart beating wildly in his chest, Jensen fixated Danneel with a shocked stare.

“Did you—“

She snorted out a laugh. “You’re hot and all but not even _I_ love you that much.”

He frowned, unsure whether to feel insulted or complimented when he noticed that there was a note stuck to every single one of the flower bouquets.

Taking a hesitant step forward, Jensen picked one of the folded papers and opened it shakily.

_‘I would have bought white lilies, but these suit you much better.’_

Jensen’s heart gave a painful squeeze and his fingers started shaking even harder than before.

It was Jared’s handwriting, scrawled and a bit hard to read, but undoubtedly Jared’s.

Jensen moved on to the next bouquet.

_‘They’re wild. Natural. Took me a few hours to pick them, but hey, who’s counting?’_

Jensen bit his lip and moved on to the dining table.

_‘I could get you lilies too if you’d prefer that. I’ll get them straight from the rainforest for you. None of that synthetic shit from the lab._

_PS: Do lilies originate from the rainforest?’_

Actually, they commonly adapted either woodland habitat or mountain areas in the South of India, not that Jared would have expected an actual answer to his question.

_‘I shouldn’t have shown up at the interview without talking to you first. I’m sorry, Jensen. Can we talk?’_

Jensen’s breath got trapped in his throat, his heart aching.

He balled the note up into a ball, heart racing in his chest.

“Jensen—“ Danneel put her textbook aside, expression soft and compassionate.

Jensen ignored her and grabbed the flowers next to him before dumping them in the trash.

 

 

 

On Tuesday, Jensen stepped out the door and nearly tripped over a stack of brand-new sketch books.

They were the expensive kind; leather-bound and hand-crafted.

Jensen’s eyes watered when he noticed the small pack of Montblanc pencils with a red ribbon on top sitting next to the sketchbooks on his doormat.

It wasn’t hard to guess who the present was from.

He crouched down to retrace his engraved initials with a finger and squeezed his eyes shut.

_"My sketchbook," Jensen’s eyes widened at the sight. “Where did you get this?”_

_“Found it on the floor this morning. You must have dropped it on your way inside last night.”_

The memories of their first car ride together, of the way Jared had looked at him when he had handed him his ruined drawings, would forever be burned into Jensen’s mind.

It took a minute or two to gather his bearings before he stepped over the stack of leather-bound books as if they weren’t even there.

 

 

 

Friday was game day.

It was the last Lacrosse game of the season and Jensen managed to score the winning goal for their team.

Needless to say, everyone was ecstatic and Jensen could barely breathe in between all the hugs and nudges and hair-ruffles from his teammates.

They usually closed a successful season by getting drunk together, but Jensen felt exhausted and the touches were starting to really get to him, making his skin crawl with the need to take a hot shower.

He excused himself, telling everyone he was tired and jogged off the field in his sweat-soaked jersey when he noticed Matt coming up at him from the bleachers.

Jensen’s gut clenched at the sight.

Matt was about the _last_ thing Jensen wanted to deal with right now.

His mind was racing to come up with a fitting excuse, chest clenching with even more panic because the last time he had seen Matt, the guy had practically force-kissed him and now he was standing there with that bright-and-cheerful expression like nothing had happened.

“Hey!” Matt jogged up to him and Jensen cringed at the sound of his voice. “You were fantastic out there. The way you turned and did that bull dodge, throwing the defender off balance was—“

“Yeah, listen,” Jensen started and then abruptly stopped himself, breath hitching when he noticed another figure creeping closer from the corner of his vision.

His heart skipped a beat when he recognized the messy hair and the leather jacket; broad shoulders and endless legs approaching him slowly.

“Who are you looking at?” Matt frowned, twisting around to follow Jensen’s gaze.

Before he knew what he was doing he grabbed a fistful of Matt’s jacket and yanked him close, kissing him hard on the mouth.

The gesture had a dual effect: turning Matt’s attention away from Jared for one thing, but also showing Jared that he could turn straight back to his bike and _leave_ because Jensen was _totally_ over him.

Only that he _hadn’t_ moved on, and that even with Matt’s hands on his hips and the guy’s tongue down his throat, he still wanted Jared more than anything, still imagined it was _him_ instead of Matt, just like he always did.

“Wow,” Matt chuckled when Jensen finally broke away, cheeks flushed with heat and pleasure. “Still hyped from the game? Must be the adrenaline, huh?”

_Happens to a lot of people on their first ride. Must be something about the adrenaline rush._

Jensen bit his lip at the memory, trying to keep the emotions at bay.

His fingers were twitching, his eyes automatically drawn back to where Jared had just stood under the bleachers.

But the spot was vacant now. 

Jared had left.

 

 

 

On Sunday morning, Jensen decided to hit the gym.

He turned his phone off and wrapped his knuckles, one towel slung over his shoulder as he walked across the room to the punching bag he used for his training sessions.

The gym was empty and from experience, Jensen knew that it would stay that way until the early afternoon.

Most of the other guys in training usually spent their Sundays sleeping in, but with the recent events and Jared’s return still so fresh in his mind, Jensen wouldn’t be able to sleep, anyway.

Instead, he’d spend the next few hours beating the rough patch of leather that dangled from the ceiling and with each busted knuckle, with each sharp pain that shot through his spleen and robbed him of his breath, the internal hurt festering in his heart would slowly drain out of him.

He got two punches in, maybe three before the soft echo of a voice reverberated through the training hall, freezing Jensen in place.

“You need to turn your whole body into the punch,” Jared advised, letting his footsteps precede his presence. “Use the strength from your core instead of your arms.”

Jensen didn’t turn around to acknowledge Jared’s presence.

Instead, he swung ruthlessly at the punching bag once again, slamming another punch into the abused leather and causing the bag to swing back with a rattle of chains.

Jared stepped around the bag, directly into Jensen’s line of vision.

He grabbed the bag from behind and taking up a wide stance, holding it in place.

“Feet diagonal, wider than shoulder width apart, back heels slightly raised.”

Jensen tried to ignore Jared but it was hard when he wouldn’t stop _talking_.

His breathing was going too fast, his hands sweating through the bandages he’d used to wrap his knuckles with.

The punching bag swam in and out of his focus as he tried to calm down.

“Get out,” he said, voice cracking through the air like a whip.

Jared just looked at him openly, unfazed by the words.

“Listen. Let’s just—“

“I said _get out_ ,” Jensen repeated. “I have nothing to say to you.”

Jensen threw two more punches to the bag, one right hook, followed by a sharp uppercut, harder than before because he wanted for Jared to feel it- wanted to make it _hurt_ \- to get him to leave.

_Just fucking leave like you left before you fucking bastard!_

_Why can’t you just leave me alone?_

He delivered one last jab to the bag, trying to twist his abdomen into the punch and was surprised to feel the force of it, sending Jared stumbling back a few steps.

“That’s better,” Jared commented. “Remember to keep your dominant hand in the back. Your left hand is for protection.”

“Unless your left has been mangled,” Jensen snapped, no longer able to hold the words back.

His thumb had healed, but it still hurt like a mother every time he needed to fend off an attack with it.

So he had pretended to be left-handed instead, tried to protect his gimp hand as much as possible.

A distant flicker of guilt settled in Jared’s eyes.

“Jensen…” Jared let out a breath, but Jensen didn’t want to hear it.

“Yeah, you know what? I’m out of here.”

He stepped back from the punching bag, starting to furiously unwrap his knuckles.

“We need to talk,” Jared said, circling the bag and coming to stand in front of Jensen.

“Maybe you do,” Jensen tossed his bandages to the ground. “I recommend a therapist for that.”

He was about to run off, but Jared grabbed a fistful of his shirt and held him in place. “You wanna stand there and tell me that I fucked up, you wanna punch me in the face or _cry_ or tell me to get lost, fine. Fine, I deserve it. But for your own fucking sake, stop running from this!”

“ _Stop running?”_ Jensen repeated incredulously, shoving Jared back hard by the shoulders. “That’s fucking rich coming from you, don’t you think?”

Jared pursed his lips and blinked, slowly, like he needed a moment to collect himself or otherwise he was going to say something stupid.

“I’m here, _now_.”

“Yeah well now isn’t the time,” Jensen bit out, yanking himself free again.

“Screw you, Jensen!” Jared scoffed and pulled him back a second time, this time by grabbing his arm and digging his fingers into Jensen’s biceps. “It’s been over nine months and now isn’t the time? For how much longer do you think we should ignore what happened? Why can’t we just sort this thing out here and now?”

Jensen felt anger bubble up inside of him and before he knew it he snapped, snarling at Jared with rage and accusation lacing his thunderous words. “Sort things out? Thanks to you I’ve spent the past months in a fucking depression, Jared! I hardly ate, hardly spoke, I woke up every goddamn night with the images of that warehouse in my goddamn mind, seeing myself as I pulled that trigger and shooting you in the damn chest. I saw an endless replay of how I killed a guy with my own fucking hands! I was a fucking _wreck_ and you couldn’t be bothered to pick up your goddamn phone!”

Jensen broke himself off, his voice wrecked to hell as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

“Jen—“

“You walked out on me when I was lying in that goddamn hospital bed, like you—”

“Like I what?” Jared deflated, shoulders hunched and voice small.

“Like I was _damaged_ ,” Jensen concluded brokenly. “Like I wasn’t worth a goddamn thing to you.”

“Jensen,” Jared shook his head, tears in his eyes; his fingers tightening around Jensen’s arm like he could somehow keep him there by sheer force. “You’ve _got_ to know that that’s not true.”

Jensen snorted out a watery breath; skin tingling where Jared’s fingers were touching him.

How often had he’d craved that simple touch between them?

Just a brush of fingers.

A chaste kiss.

_Anything._

“All I know,” Jensen forced out. “Is that you took off and never turned back. Nine fucking months without as much as a word and now that you’re back with your bike and your presents and your half-assed apologies, I’m supposed to just fall right back into your arms?”

Jensen yanked himself free with a hard shove to Jared’s chest, sending him stumbling back.

“Sorry. But words just won't cut it this time."

He was about to leave, but Jared’s voice held him back.

“You wanna know the reason why I—“ Jared’s voice broke off before starting again. “I left because every time I looked at you lying in that hospital bed, every goddamn time I looked at the bruises covering your face, all I could see, all I could fucking _think_ about? It was how much I’d _failed_ you.”

Jared sucked in a wet breath and closed the distance between them, slowly, until they were only a couple of feet apart.

“Jensen, you are the best thing that ever happened to me,” he continued softly, his voice nothing more than a whisper as he lifted his hand to cup Jensen’s cheek.

And Jensen’s breath hitched at the simple touch, heart missing a beat in his chest.

“I never saw anything but good in you,” he forced out. “I only saw all the things I wanted for myself and knew I couldn’t have."

Jared’s thumb brushed over Jensen’s lip, soft and gentle, with nothing but worship in his eyes and Jensen felt that stupid, ridiculous flutter of butterflies in his chest.

It was stupid because he knew he should be _furious._

He should have been yelling and crying and ripping his hair out, but for the love of god, right now, with Jared just an inch from his own face, with his broken admission soothing his soul like nothing else in the past nine months ever could, Jensen felt dizzy with the need to reassure himself of Jared’s presence- with the need to _touch_.

Jared tugged him closer, tentative hands slipping up along the side of his face, tangling in Jensen’s hair, pulling Jensen in until he was practically molded between Jared and the door, his smaller frame up against Jared’s tall, muscular one.

“Get your fucking hands off of me,” Jensen hissed, resisting the temptation that was Jared’s body heat and pressing his hands against Jared’s chest in a weak attempt to shove him off.

“No,” Jared said, low and husky, unfazed by Jensen’s words.

“Pack your shit. And _leave_.”

“No,” Jared growled, eyes glinting with fire.

He curled a hand against the back of Jensen’s head and pressed him harder against the door, their mouths close but not quite touching.

Jensen felt the blood curse through his veins, hot and thick as his skin tingled under Jared’s touch.

He couldn’t remember ever having wanted anything more in his life than for Jared’s for Jared’s lips to move against his own, eradicating the lingering taste of Matt from his tongue.

 

Jared tilted his face up and searched Jensen’s eyes for a flicker of doubt or objection, any indication that Jensen didn’t want this.

But his actions had belied his earlier words and when Jared found nothing but _want_ in Jensen’s emerald gaze, he leaned down to envelope Jensen’s lips with his own.

A fire ignited in Jensen’s chest when Jared’s tongue flicked over his bottom lip, body tightening from head to toe.

Their bodies slotted together, Jensen’s lean chest against a mountain of unyielding steel and his breathing picked up so much he thought he was going to pass out from it.

Jared angled his head to the side to get better access, their mouths disconnecting for the briefest of seconds before they reclaimed each other with even more force than before.

He was sure that Jared would be able to feel his frantic heartbeat through his shirt; their bodies were pressed so tightly together.

This was the moment he’d waited for the past nine-and-a-half months.

It felt nerve-wracking and exciting and _so fucking right_ , their lips knowing exactly how to mirror each other, tongues moving in perfect unison.

“God, I’ve missed you,” Jared broke away before leaning in for one last, sweetly off-centered kiss to the corner of Jensen’s mouth. “So fucking much.”

Their foreheads were leaning against each other, their breaths mingling.

And with each beat of his heart, Jensen felt more vulnerable, more insecure.

The nearness of Jared, of what Jensen had been dreaming about for so long, suddenly being within reach again had gotten to his head for a second, overruling his rationality.

But now that he was slowly coming back to his senses, he felt like

“I should go,” he muttered dejectedly, pushing out of Jared’s hold. “We shouldn’t have done this.”

More hurt seeped into Jared’s whisky-colored eyes and his expression suddenly developed a sharp edge, jaw shifting into a tight line of anger.

“Is it because of Matt? You’re back with him, is that it?”

There was absolutely no way to miss the possessiveness in Jared’s voice.

Jensen’s throat closed up and he bit his bottom lip, heart, and mind racing with too many thoughts and emotions.

“I can’t do this,” he choked out, voice breaking. “I just _can’t_.”

Jared grabbed him by the wrist and whirled him around hard, eyes ablaze with fire.

“I’m not going to let you run off like this. That’s not how we do things.”

“Oh yeah?” Jensen hissed out, low and furious. “Could have fooled me.”

“Look, I know I fucked up, big time, but at least give me a chance to explain why I acted that way.“

"I already told you I have nothing to say to you."

Jared scoffed. “Well tough. Cause there’s a whole load of crap I’ve got to say to _you_.”

“Yeah? Like what?” Jensen spat out. “Like why you couldn’t be fucking bothered to—"

“Like how I couldn’t bear the thought of you getting hurt because of me,” Jared cut him off. “Like how I thought you were better off without me because all I ever did- all I ever _do_ \- is hurting the people I love."

Jensen looked at him, hard and unwavering.

Jared sighed and ran a hand through his hair,his own eyes stormy and piercing as they held Jensen's gaze.

“Seeing you in that warehouse, having to watch you almost bleed to death in my arms? It was the worst thing I've ever had to endure and it made me realize something."

Jensen shook his head, trying to free himself from Jared’s grip, but the taller man didn’t let go.

It became harder for him to breathe and he really felt like he needed to leave. 

“It made me realize how _utterly_ , _hopelessly_  in love with you I was," Jared admitted softly. "And how I couldn't lose you, no matter what."

And that did it. Whatever flicker of residual composure Jensen had been holding onto, crumbled away like dust under his fingers.

He shook his head in denial, trying to twist away, trying not to listen to this because how was he supposed to fucking believe a word coming from these lips after what had happened?

But Jared captured his chin with his fingers and lifting it until their eyes met again.

“I fucking love you, Jensen, you hear me? _I love you._ "

Looking up at Jared, Jensen wanted to hate him for saying it. 

But Jensen couldn’t deny the way his treacherous heart nearly burst with joy at hearing these three words, spoken so fiercely and with so much strength when Jensen had spent the past nine months thinking Jared had left because he didn't _care enough._

Jared’s eyes were brimming with emotion when his thumb skirted over Jensen’s cheek once again.

It took a moment for Jensen to realize that Jared had caught a tear with his thumb and enveloped his freckled skin in salty wetness.

“You have a funny way of showing it," he whispered voicelessly, more tears sliding free.

“Let me show you, then,” Jared said softly, barely above a whisper. 

And Jensen might have told himself that he was going to be strong and that he had learned from his mistakes, but put him in a fucking room with Jared and those three little words between them and Jensen couldn’t find enough self-preservation in himself to push Jared away again.

Jared pulled him in for a kiss, a lot softer than the one before and Jensen’s eyes fluttered close.

Maybe he should have told Jared off, told him that he was a jerk, but Jensen had missed kissing Jared so fucking much. He loved the way their mouths fit perfectly together, the way Jared knew exactly what to do and how to move to make Jensen dizzy with pleasure.

They were kissing tenderly, soft and gentle in a way it had never been before and Jensen was gradually forgetting why this was supposed to be a bad idea.

Jared pushed him back once more, backing him up against the wall and Jensen spread his legs on sheer instinct, allowing Jared more access.

“What are we doing?” Jensen panted, even as he bunched Jared’s jacket up with his hands, pulling him closer, still, not getting enough.

“Whatever you want.”

Jared was letting him call the shots in this, letting him choose whether they should stop there or take it even further.

And fuck it, but Jensen wanted _more_ , he wanted everything Jared had to give, consequences be damned.

“I just want _you_ ,” he whispered out a soft plea. 

_I never stopped wanting you._

“You sure?” Jared asked, even as his fingers had started pulling up the hem of Jensen’s shirt. 

Jensen nodded and yanked his own shirt off with ruthless efficiency, feeling Jared’s gaze burning hot on his skin.  He made quick work of his sweatpants too, sliding them down his thighs until he was standing there butt-naked.

Jared’s breath actually caught in his throat as his hungry eyes slowly trailed over Jensen’s body, taking in every inch of the pale skin like it was the first fucking time. 

Then he caught up with the program, sliding off his jacket and fumbling with the zipper of his jeans.

Jensen cupped the side of his neck and pulled him in for another kiss, sliding Jared’s black shirt off with shaking fingers.

He froze at the sight of Jared’s tattooed skin and rippling muscle beneath because he was fucking addicted to Jared’s body and he had almost forgotten how fucking glorious it was.

Normal people shouldn’t react this way, shouldn’t be this torn between desire and despair just from looking at someone, but here Jensen was, out of his mind with want.

“C’mere,” Jared instructed softly and Jensen straightened back up almost instantly, shivering slightly.

Jared hooking one arm under his legs and wrapping the other one around his back before lifting him up from the ground and pressing him back against the wall.

Jensen wrapped his legs around Jared’s back and slung his arms around his neck to keep himself steady, licking deep into his mouth with growing urgency.

Then he lowered his mouth down to the grove of Jensen’s neck and Jensen winced, reaching up to cover the cigarette burns with trembling fingers. 

"Jay—"

“Don’t hide from me,” Jared said, kissing the burn wounds softly, almost reverently. “You’re fucking beautiful. There’s not an inch of you that’s not beautiful, you hear me?”

Jensen closed his eyes against the sting of tears, eyes fluttering at the sensation of kisses against the faded line of scars on his neck.

Then Jared leaned back and slicked up two of his fingers with saliva before moving his arm to slide up Jensen’s body and gently spreading his cheeks.

The tips of two fingers pressed against Jensen’s hole and Jared broke their kiss to look into Jensen’s hooded eyes, gaze intent as they stared at each other. “Okay?”

Jensen nodded, mouthing against the scruff on Jared’s skin.

He didn’t think he would have been able to stop now, even if he wanted.

They were kissing when Jared’s fingers breached him.

It was more than they usually started with, but they didn’t have any time to waste and Jensen wanted it this way, craving the slow burn and build of pressure inside of him.

“God, yes,” Jensen groaned, body pushing back into Jared’s hand, far enough to feel Jared’s knuckles slip past his rim.

It was crazy how his body reacted to Jared, how much he wanted Jared, even now, after everything that had happened- hell, maybe even more so than ever before.

This wasn’t just sex, but it was a confirmation of life, of having someone back within reach when you’d thought them lost forever- it was a manifestation of love and need and nine months’ worth of heartbreak and denial and fucking anger.

Jensen’s eyes rolled back in his head in a blur of Jared’s teeth and the scalding hot sensation of his lips and tongue against his sweaty skin.

And all the while there was a maddening twist and pull of fingers, shoving in and out of him with practiced ease and brushing up against that secret bundle of nerves that quickly turned Jensen into a panting, writhing puddle of goo. “Jared… Jay. Enough. I’m ready.”

Jared pressed a kiss to his throat and slipped out, eyes blown with lust as he looked at Jensen.

He scooted back a little before aligning the head of his cock up with Jensen’s hole.

Jared slowly pushed forward and Jensen winced at the painful stretch, mouth falling open.

His fingers dug hard into the tightened muscle on Jared’s back, nails burying in the soft skin until they drew blood.

The burn was almost too much to bear because Jared was big and _fuck_ , but he was _good_ , too.

“Hey,” Jared softly panted out, swiping his thumb over Jensen’s cheek bone. “Need me to stop?”

“Just…” Jensen was panting, his vision blurry at how fucking full he felt. “Just gimme a second.”

Jared gave him a wavering smile before kissing him once more and Jensen moaned when he felt one of Jared’s hands wrap around his cock, stroking it hard again where it had softened from the pain.

It was a little too rough at first, but then Jared seemed to find a rhythm, flicking his wrist in just the right way on every upwards stroke.

Soon enough, Jensen’s hips were rocking forward and Jared started to move inside of him, meeting every one of Jensen’s movements with a thrust of his own and keeping up a slow but steady pace.

Jared felt scalding hot inside him without that usual layer of latex and Jensen couldn’t believe he was allowing Jared to fuck him without a condom when they had about three thousand reasons not to fuck at all- least of all, doing it unprotected.

But Jensen also hadn’t known how good it would feel to feel the slow drag and slide of Jared’s bare cock inside of him; feeling every vein, every throb, every jerk and twitch of Jared's dick.

He tried to tell himself that maybe that was why it felt so much better than usually; why he was making these embarrassing little noises, writhing and moaning like some damn porn star. "

Jared hitched Jensen’s legs up higher on his waist. The movement gave them a different angle and for a second, Jared stilled and Jensen's eyes rolling back because _wow_ , that was a good angle, but maybe it was a little too good if they wanted to make this last.

He made the mistake of looking down then, at the finger-shaped bruises marking Jensen’s skin and his hips stuttered, losing their rhythm as realization slowly hit him.

“Did you sleep with him?” he asked, ragged and breathless, eyes taking on a dangerous little glint.

Jensen was long past the point of coherent thought, but the question somehow seeped through to the veil of pleasure in his mind.

“Did you let him fuck you?” Jared growled, accentuating his words with a couple of hard thrusts and fingers tightening around Jensen’s dick, causing him to both moan and whimper in response. “Did he make you feel like this?"

“N-no. I don’t—“ Jensen bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. “Never like this. He didn’t— couldn’t make me feel like this. God, Jared, _please_ —“

He threw his head back and Jared shot forward with a possessive little growl, latching onto the sweaty column of Jensen’s exposed neck and sucking at the skin.

He rocked forward harder, ripping another broken moan from Jensen’s throat and nearly causing him to slip from the wall. "Ugh, Jared. Jare. Jesus, what are you—"

"Shh...I got you," Jared’s hands skimmed down along Jensen’s sweat-slick thighs up to his ass, gripping the firm mounds of flesh possessively, steadying him as he kept up a punishing rhythm. "Gonna make you lose your fucking mind."

“Jay, please, I’m so  _close_ —“ Jensen flexed his hands against Jared’s shoulder, unable to last much longer and Jared leaned in for a bruising kiss, thrusting his tongue into his mouth.

“Touch yourself,” Jared demanded when they broke apart again, panting hard against Jensen's mouth. “Come on. Wanna see you fall apart.”

Jensen grabbed his dick and moaned, working up a rhythm between his hand and Jared’s thrusts.

Soon, the tingle at the base of his spine grew and his orgasm hit him hard and fast as if he'd been thrown into a brick wall at one hundred miles per hour.

He let out a strangled cry and he clenched around Jared’s cock, stars exploding behind his eyes.

Then his head fell forward against the sweaty nape of his neck, heart going a mile a minute as a wave of pleasure overcame him.

Jared’s breath stuttered in his chest when he followed suit, spilling hot inside of him and biting Jensen’s shoulder to muffle his own groans. 

They stayed like that for a moment before the strain on Jared’s muscles became too much and they somewhat awkwardly slid to the ground in a pile of sweaty limbs.

His eyes watered on their own account and Jensen couldn’t tell whether it was from pain or post-coital emotionality.

“Hey,” Jared whispered. “You okay?”

Jensen’s thighs quivered and Jared’s arms slipped around him in a protective hold, fingertips lightly tracing the curve of his spine.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Jensen shook his head softly.

“You sure?” Jared asked again, reaching around to press a probing finger against Jensen’s swollen entrance to try and assess the damage.

Jensen blushed at the warm slick there, trickling out of him and coating his thighs.

He felt sore and vulnerable in a way he had never felt after sex and he wondered if it was because they’d done it raw.

“I’m fine,” he whispered softly, slipping out of Jared’s grasp and reaching for his boxers.

He felt like all of this had been a mistake, starting with the kiss and ending with the sex, but most of all, he regretted that they hadn’t used a condom because this had been emotional enough as it was.

They probably should have kept a symbolic barrier between their bodies at the very least.

Now that the adrenaline wore off and the post-orgasmic glow was slowly ebbing off again, neither of them had a goddamn clue what to do or say in the wake of what had happened.

Should they talk? Should they get dressed?

Should they leave and pretend none of this ever happened?

Jared didn’t make any move to get his clothes.

Instead, he just sat there, looking at Jensen with a soft expression in his eyes.

“What?” Jensen asked, feeling oddly self-conscious under Jared's gaze.

Jared brushed his hand against Jensen’s stomach, fingers splayed protectively against the soft skin there, even as his brows knotted into a worried frown. 

“You’re still on birth control, right?”

Jensen felt a bit dizzy at the question, his mind spinning as it tried to reconstruct the previous day and whether or not he had taken his contraceptive.

He had taken an entire cocktail of pills lately, consisting of painkillers, antidepressants, aspirin- his birth control pill had often been forgotten in the mix.

His hormones shouldn’t be affected by one inconsistency as long as it was an isolated case and Jensen could always revert to the shameful plan B tomorrow morning if he deemed it necessary.

Jensen gently pried Jared’s hand away. "We should get going before someone sees us.”

He grimaced when he pulled his boxers and sweats up over the wet mess on his rear.

Jared got dressed as well and then made a move to open the door, but Jensen held him back with a hand to the shoulder.

“What the fuck did we just do?”

Jared stilled and huffed out a soft snort.

“If you still don’t know, I must have done it wrong.”

“No, I mean,” Jensen gestured between them. “Where does this leave us?”

Part of him just wanted to ask if they could keep doing this, even though he wasn’t sure he was going to survive it.

They hadn’t seen each other in more than half a year and they’d literally been through hell together before that.  Now they were back together and picking right up where they had left?

He wasn’t sure if things worked that way.

“We could take the Lightning for a spin,” Jared offered softly, trying to pull Jensen in. “Go for a beer, catch up on the past few months. _Talk_.”

But Jensen took a step back, getting enough space between their bodies to be able to breathe.

“I was serious before, you know?” he said softly. “There’s not going to be an easy fix to what happened. I’m still messed-up, Jared. And I’m still not over what you’ve done. I don’t think I can just go back to the way things have been between us.”

Jared’s expression fell, his smile turning strained. “What are you saying?”

“I’m gonna need time.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, guys! This chapter gave me quite the headache. I had to rewrite it a couple of times and I’m still very insecure as to how it turned out. I seriously hope you guys enjoyed it. Don't panic, please. Obviously, these two guys are still crazy about each other and their 'goodbye' won't keep them apart for very long! They just need to rebuild their trust and work through their issues. Please drop me a review if you can spare me a minute of your time! Reviews never fail to make me happy! A huge thank you goes out to my beta TheBoys and to ficluv82 for their advice and support <3


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings for bad language, mild physical violence and references to past abuse*

** **

** **

**Open Road  
Chapter 22**

In the weeks following Jared’s return, Jensen busied himself with studying.

It was his go-to distraction method and so far it had proven to be really useful to keep his mind off of the issues he didn’t want to dwell on like the fact that Jared had told him that he loved him or that they had jumped each other’s bones after two minutes of being in the same room with each other.

So Jensen took up twice his usual share of classes and aced every goddamn exam or research paper.

When he had an hour to spare, he grabbed his training gear and hit the gym or the lacrosse field.

He decidedly ignored it when his phone blew up with messages from Matt and mentally kicked himself for having started something up with the guy when it was so obvious that things would never even remotely work out between them.

Matt had buried whatever residual flicker of friendship or empathy Jensen had felt for him the second he kissed him against his will.

They would need to talk about it eventually, and Jensen would have to admit to never actually having had any romantic feelings for Matt at all and he couldn’t really see that going over well with the way Matt had acted around him lately.

Jensen’s train of thought was interrupted by the insistent voice of one of his lecturers, explaining how they were not supposed to leave the room for the span of the next three hours and how they were to remove any and all objects from their tables.

Jensen knew the drill.

Exams in Harvard were still pretty old-school; they always followed the same old structures.

“—lease do not forget to sign your answer sheet with indelible ink and don’t  forget to write down your PIN in a safe place.You will need the PIN to get your exam results. We wish you good luck.”

Jensen turned the page around, eyes rapidly scanning the first question.

_Which of the following extracellular enzymes produced by Group A streptococci is called "spreading factor," an enzyme important in skin and soft tissue infection?_

  1. _Streptokinase_
  2. _Hyaluronidase_
  3. _M Protein_
  4. _Deoxyribonuclease C_
  5. _None of the above_



Jensen circled option 4 before moving on to the next question and then the one after that.

Once he was finished, he read through his answers one last time before raising his hand for the lecturer to see.

“Mr. Ackles, I’m afraid there are no bathroom breaks allowed during—“

“I’m done,” Jensen cut the lecturer off; making sure his student ID and signature were in place.

The guy was only an assistant and a new one at that, he didn’t know Jensen well enough to be used to this, but the rest of his classmates were, never failing to send him murderous glares from where they were probably not even halfway through their own exams.

Jensen had learned to ignore their malevolence. 

He slung his bag over his shoulder and dropped the exam papers on the table.

“This is a three-hour exam. There were over one hundred questions,” the assistant explained slowly like maybe Jensen had skipped twenty pages without noticing it. “Even just reading the instructions, would have easily taken you—“

“It took me forty minutes. That’s longer than usual. Now can I leave or do I need a hallway pass?” Jensen asked sarcastically and the guy’s eyes narrowed. “I could call my mom and ask her to sign a permission slip if you’d prefer that.”

The assistant shifted his jaw in dismay. “You’re dismissed.”

Jensen left the hall and let out a soft breath when the door fell closed behind him, feeling oddly empowered in the wake of that little stand-off.

It was starting to feel like he was finding back to himself.

 

 ****

 

Jared was helping the guys out in the new garage to pass the time.

Fran, the old mechanic who ran the place, was a decent enough guy and he knew a thing or two about the kind of life they’ve been living.

He never complained about Jared’s presence or Chad and Sophia’s frequent visits, never told them to shut up when they threw jokes around or bickered with each other.

He didn’t even say anything when they knocked back a few shots together and Jared had the sinking suspicion that the old man understood the need to drown your worries in alcohol.

As long as their work didn’t suffer from it, he was willing to turn the other way, and somewhere along the road, Jared had settled back into the old gang routine well enough.

Things were still different, of course, and Jared missed the old garage.

He missed Jeff.

But most of all, he missed Jensen.

And no matter how many days or weeks passed, or how often Jared glanced at his phone, Jensen’s lack of response- his dragged-out game of radio silence- was driving Jared up the wall with growing desperation.

What if Jensen was never going to call?

What if he had decided that their time was over and that he didn’t want Jared back?

“Stop thinking so loud,” Genevieve tossed a dirty rag at his face, startling him out of his thoughts. She was sitting on one of the bikes they were working on, her feet propped up against the Yamaha’s brake adjustment. “Your brain might explode from all that extra work.”

Jared shook the offending cloth off with a frown and flipped her off. “Go screw yourself, Gen.”

“I’d rather you’d do it for me,” she teased and stuck her pierced tongue out at him.

“Watch your fucking mouth around her,” Chris admonished as he rocked a cooing Elle in his arms.

They had tried to cut back on the profanities for Elizabeth’s sake, but so far without success.

“You don’t seriously think this kid will grow up to be normal around us, right?” Katie chuckled. “Twenty bucks say her first word will be ‘fuck’ or ‘damn it’.”

“ _’Damn it’_  are two fucking words,” Chase corrected and earned himself a scowl for his efforts.

Jared watched them with tender amusement in his gaze, basking in the playful banter between his friends, in the way they all cooed and squeed over Elizabeth’s  frilly dresses and rosy cheeks like they had never seen a baby before.

“Here, let me have her,” Jared demanded, because for the life of him, he couldn’t deny how good it felt to look into her wondrous blue eyes and listen to the little squeals and babbles she made.

Chris gently held her out for Jared, who had actually gotten quite good at holding her, moving her against his chest with practiced ease.

“Puh puh puh,” she babbled enthusiastically, pointing at the Yamaha Genevieve was sitting on and Jared’s heart melted a bit at the sound of her baby language.

She had recently started playing with language, producing a steady stream of different vowels and consonants that seemed like they could be words but weren't quite there yet.

“Tah tah, be bee, ba ba.”

“That’s right, sweetheart. That’s a Yamaha. And that rattle we’re hearing? Could be a variety of things, but I’m thinking it might be the bearings in the bottom of the engine, perhaps the crankshaft.”

Elizabeth responded to his words by pulling at a strand of Jared’s hair with a chortled laugh.

A knock on the door had them all turn around in surprise.

Sandy was standing in the doorway with a soft little smile on her lips. “You didn’t just try to teach my four-month-old daughter how to fix the engine of a bike, right?”

Jared ducked his head and chuckled at having gotten caught red-handed.

“She’s a natural.”

 

** **

 

_Blood._

_The blood was everywhere._

_Coating the walls, seeping through his fingers, infiltrating the air he was breathing, leaving a coppery taste on his tongue when he swallowed._

_“I took the liberty to modify the rules a bit,” Lucian grinned and stepped up behind Jensen, lifting his uninjured right arm to stretch out in front of him, the gun aimed straight for Jared’s chest._

_“No,” Jensen shook his head desperately, trying to pull his hand back, but Lucian was holding it in place, forcing Jensen’s quivering finger to wrap around the trigger. "No, please don't—"_

_Lucian curled his fingers around Jensen’s and pulled the trigger._

_A shot fired off, echoing through the empty storage hall and hot blood spattered Jensen’s face as the bullet buried itself in Jared’s forehead._

_For a grotesque second, Jared’s body still stayed upright, mouth hanging open in shock as blood trickled from the frayed bullet hole and slid down his nose, but then his body slumped to the side, hitting the dirty warehouse floor with a dull thud._

_His eyes were staring lifelessly into the distance as he lay on the ground, a puddle of crimson steadily growing around his head like some sick version of a halo._

_And Jensen screamed._

 

** **

 

Jared was at Jeff’s house, mindlessly switching channels when his phone suddenly started ringing.

With a fleeting glance at his watch, he noticed that it was three thirty in the morning and frowned, instantly concerned.

His heart was racing when he answered. “Hello?”

There was heavy breathing on the other end of the call and for a second Jared locked his jaw at the thought that he might have just freaked out over some fucking pervert.

But then he identified a tiny sob in between gasped breaths and his heart sank.

“Jensen?” he asked, instantly alert at the sound of the other man’s distress. “You okay?”

“ _Jared_.”

“What’s going on? You alright?” Jared got up from his seat, clamping the cell down between his ear and shoulder as he grabbed his car keys from the couch table.

“Are you in your dorm?” Jared asked, keeping his voice firm and steady even when Jensen’s lack of response started to seriously freak him out.

Jensen’s breathing was way too fast and he didn’t seem to be with it enough to communicate in coherent sentences. “Jay.”

“Jensen! Talk to me,” he barked out, panic seeping into his tone. “I’m gonna need you to tell me where you are, you hear me?”

“I didn’t— I didn’t _want_ to. He made me. H-he _made_ me do it.”

“He made you do what? Who are you talking about?”

The thought that somebody had ‘made’ Jensen do anything he didn’t want- anything that could make him sound like this- so lost and miserable and frightened- made Jared almost blind with rage.

“Lucian… it was… he made me _kill_ you.”

All the air left Jared’s lungs in a whoosh at the words.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to swallow past the painful lump in his throat.

“He pulled the t-trigger. And you just— you just died,“ Jensen’s voice broke off on a sob.

He got in behind the steering wheel of Jeff’s old pick-up and fired up the engine, his breathing ragged as his heart threatened to punch a hole through his chest.

“Listen to me,” Jared interrupted in a calm, but firm voice. “It was a dream. Just a dream, alright? The chamber was empty when you pulled that trigger. You didn’t shoot me, Jensen. It was a nightmar—“

The line suddenly went dead and Jared’s heart skipped a beat in panic.

He let out a stream of curses and doubled the speed limit the entire way to the Harvard campus.

 

  ****

Jensen had lost every sense of time as he sat huddled on the bathroom tiles, rocking back and forth.

His lips had turned blue and his teeth had started chattering.

The shower spray had turned cold some time ago, hitting his back unrelentingly and soaking through the shirt and boxers he had worn to sleep.

His phone was still tightly clutched in his fingers and somewhere in the back of his mind Jensen was still aware enough to know that the water running over his fingers in icy currents had destroyed the little trinket beyond repair.

There were voices around him, hands on his arms and shoulders and Jensen even vaguely remembered someone slapping him in the face, but he didn’t care, didn’t even really feel it.

All he felt was the cold as it seeped into his heart and his bones.

And the blood coating his body from head to toe.

Jared’s blood.

It stuck to him like a second layer of skin, warm and oily and impossible to get rid of.

“—ensen.”

_Jared’s body was lying limp on the ground, blood steadily dripping from the hole in his forehead and pieces of brain matter sticking to the walls._

“Jensen, snap out of it, c’mon!”

 _Jared’s lifeless eyes were staring up at him, glazed over and full of accusation_. _‘You killed me,’_ _they screamed_. _‘Just look! Look at what you’ve done. You’ve killed me.’_

Jensen gagged convulsively as his eyes rolled back in his head.

“ _Shit!_ Help me turn him around.”

The world moved around him and Jensen’s stomach revolted at the dizzying movement.

Gentle touches were replaced by strong ones; firm large hands splayed against his back and stomach as he was being maneuvered around until head was hovering over the foot of the shower stall.

Jensen started retching, chest convulsing with pain as he heaved onto the bathroom floor.

“Should I call an ambulance?” Someone asked.

Jensen felt fingers slide beneath the sweat-soaked fringe of his grown out hair.

His arms quivered where they were propped against the shower stall and Jensen was pretty sure he would have fallen face first into his own puddle of sick if it wasn’t for the strong arms holding him up or the sturdy chest pressed against his back from behind.

“No, I’ve got this. Just get him a glass of water and bring me something to wrap his arms with.”

Jensen’s body was wracked by shivers as he heaved until there was nothing left in his stomach.

“I- I didn’t…”

“It’s alright. Try to calm down,” the gentle voice persisted, breathing low and calm against the shell of his ear as if the words were a well-guarded secret between them. 

Jensen shook his head, growing more desperate.

“G-get it off. Get it off of me, _please_. It’s everywhere and it won’t come off—“

He scrubbed at his skin, trying to rid himself of the stench of blood but it didn’t work.

He could still feel the oily moisture on his palms, underneath his fingernails.

His skin was a bright angry red from all the desperate scrubbing he had done, the shower water tinted a dark pink from his own blood as it trickled down the shower drain.

His eyes were bloodshot and his movements became more frantic, his whole body shaking as he fumbled with the shower faucet, trying to turn it back on.

“I n-need to—“

“Jensen, stop it!” the voice commanded and the arms wrapped more firmly around Jensen from behind, holding him tight and keeping him in place.

“He’s dead,” Jensen cried, voice cracking with despair and he was crying now, fat ugly tears running down his face. “The blood- his blood is on my hands. I need to get it _off_.”

“It’s yours, damnit!” the voice snapped and then he was yanked around in the shower stall; callous palms cradling his face as hazel eyes stared into his own.  “Jensen, look at me. I’m right here, alright? I’m not dead. The blood on your hands is your own. You scrubbed your skin raw, caused it to bleed… that’s it. That’s all.”

Jensen blinked, trying to clear his vision but everything was blurry and swimming out of focus.

His heart was hammering at a near frantic pace and the hands on his face felt so good; the solid warmth of the fingertips bleeding into his cheeks as they drew invisible lines between Jensen’s freckles.

He knew this touch, knew the stormy hazel eyes that held his blurry gaze, knew the voice that had just spoken.

“Look at me,” Jared ordered before manhandling Jensen around until his palm was splayed against Jared’s chest, right above the frantic beat of his heart. “Feel this?”

Jensen did.

He felt Jared’s heartbeat vibrating in his chest, pounding loud and strong against his own palm, reassuring him of his presence in the most basic and essential way.

“That’s me, being alive. That’s _me_ , Jensen.”

“Jay?” Jensen whispered as if he couldn’t believe that this was really happening; that Jared was really sitting drenched and shivering in the shower stall with him, water running down the side of his face and dripping from his pointed nose; his eyes shining with so much guilt and affection as he pressed Jensen’s palm down over the spot above his heart.

He was not dead, not lying in a puddle of his own blood; shot by Jensen’s hand.

But he was _here_ , looking at Jensen with so much sorrow and guilt in his face that it was painful to hold his gaze.

“Yeah,” Jared breathed, sending a few water drops flying from his lips. “You back with me, yet?”

Jensen bit his lips, tasting the rancid aftertaste of vomit on his tongue as he grew awkwardly aware of the fact that he’d just had another panic attack; that he’d thrown up all over himself- all over Jared and thrashed around and cried like someone who needed to be locked up in a psychiatric ward.

“ _Jay_.”

Choking on a sob, Jensen allowed Jared to pull him forward against his chest.

“Let it out,” Jared whispered softly, wrapping his strong arms protectively around Jensen’s quivering back as he hiccupped and sobbed and completely broke down against the side of Jared’s neck. “It’s okay. Just let it all out, Jen. I’ve got you.”

Tom was standing in the doorway, looking _freaked_ and Jensen was bawling like a little kid, every finger tangled in Jared’s clothing as if it was the only thing keeping him grounded; as if he was afraid that Jared might slip right from his grasp again if he ever let go.

“ _Jay_ —“

“I’m here. Right here, it’s alright.”

Jensen squeezed his eyes shut and let the words wash through him.

 

** **

 

After he had helped Tom and Jared to clean up the worst of his mess in the bathroom, Jensen had changed his clothes and brushed his teeth in awkward silence, avoiding eye contact.

Still shaky and weak on his legs, he had trudged off to bed and buried himself under the covers when a soft tapping noise against the door caused him to look up.

Jared wordlessly slipped inside and Jensen’s heart lodged in his throat.

“Hey,” Jared croaked out softly, carding fingers through his hair. “How are you holding up?”

Jensen shrugged a little, feeling the familiar sting of tears in his eyes.

He hadn’t wanted for Jared to see him like _this_.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jared offered after a moment’s hesitation. “Cause if you do—“

“I don’t,” Jensen returned, knowing he would break down completely if he tried.

He pulled the duvet up higher around his shoulders, trying to hide hurt in his eyes.

“Okay,” Jared sighed after a moment. “Alright. Then I guess I’ll just—“

He gestured towards the door, making it seem like he was about to leave again and somehow the thought of Jared _leaving_ was even more terrifying than the thought of having to talk to him.

“Stay?” Jensen asked in a whisper, eyes shining brightly in the moonlight. “ _Please_.”

Jared’s expression softened as he crossed the room and crouched down before Jensen’s bed.

His caramel eyes glinted softly in the dark and Jensen had to bite his bottom lip to keep from crying.

Jared caressed the side of Jensen’s face, running a gentle thumb across his cheek.

“Of course.”

Jensen scooted over in bed, making room as Jared stretched out on the mattress beside him.

For a few seconds, they just stared at each other from opposing sides of the bed, leaving a human-sized space between them like an invisible wall of privacy, but then Jared propped his back against the headboard and patted his chest. “Come here.”

Jensen hesitated for all but a second before he moved in to curl up against Jared’s chest, feeling the steady beat of Jared’s heart against his cheekbone.

A warm hand settled on his back and Jensen’s eyes fluttered closed, a mixture of mind-numbing relief and exhaustion slowly dragging him under.

The sound of Jared’s steady breathing, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, coupled with his body heat and the gentle rhythm of his heart were soothing in a way no amount of words could ever be.

Jensen hadn’t realized how much he had needed this.

How much he had needed Jared’s body warm and safe next to his own to reassure himself of what was real and what wasn’t.

“Thank you,” he whispered the words into the skin right below Jared’s neck, against the wolf tattoo standing out against the corded skin on his throat.

Jared cupped his face and peered down into his eyes with an intensity that made him shiver.

“Don’t thank me for this,” he whispered, a flicker of deep, unsettling guilt in his eyes. “Not for this.”

Jensen swallowed, feeling unnaturally clingy. “Will you stay?”

“Yeah,” Jared promised, carding his fingers through his gold brown hair. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Jensen closed his eyes and, for once, fell into a dreamless sleep.

 

  ****

The next morning came way too soon.

Jensen blinked when the first sun rays tickled his skin and threw an arm over his face to block out the unexpected brightness with a miserable groan.

It wasn’t until he heard Jared’s soft snort of laughter that the reality of what had happened the night before slammed back into him, causing his eyes to flash back open.

“Still not a morning person, I see,” Jared commented with an amused quirk of his lips.

He was still sitting with his back against the headboard, legs propped up against the mattress as he continued to scribble something down inside what looked like a notebook.

Jensen frowned when he identified the leather-bound booklet he was writing in as one of the sketchbooks Jared had dropped off on his doormat a few weeks before.

They had ended up in his room after all that night (possibly because Tom had carried them inside), and Jensen hadn’t been able to force himself to throw them away. But he hadn’t drawn in them either; hadn’t used them for any of his drafts or sketches.

“What are you doing?” Jensen asked, trying to peek inside the book, but Jared closed it before he got a chance to read the scribbled handwriting inside.

“Last night you said you didn’t want to talk,” Jared explained.

Jensen swallowed, opening his mouth, but Jared held up a hand, stopping him.

“It’s fine, believe me, I get it,” Jared looked him in the eyes and then held out the sketchbook.

A confused look settled in his eyes as he took it and gently opened it.

At least twenty pages were filled with Jared’s sloppy handwriting.

“So I thought maybe it would help you to read about my side of things, you know, about some of the stuff I’m going through myself.”

Jensen looked down at Jared’s writings for a moment longer, fingers brushing the leather-bound cover almost reverently.

Then he looked up again, meeting Jared’s eyes with a mixture of sadness and gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jared gave back softly and then detangled himself from Jensen’s blanket. “Think I should get going now. I kinda promised Chris to help out at the garage today.”

Jensen felt a sudden pang of loss at the prospect of Jared leaving.

He bit his lip and clutched the sketchbook with both his hands, holding on to it with all his might.

“Yeah, sure.”

Jensen would have asked Jared to stay for breakfast if he hadn’t been needed at work.

But then he reminded himself of their conversation and about how he had asked Jared to take things slow and he realized that Jared was giving him an out.

That he was trying to give Jensen the space he had asked for.

“How is he doing?” Jensen cleared his throat; voice wavering. “Chris, I mean?”

“He’s okay,” Jared pursed his lips. “They all are. But they miss you.”

Jensen’s gaze dropped to the ground, his heart giving a painful squeeze in his chest.

“Steve’s birthday’s coming up,” Jared casually mentioned, coming fingers through his hair. “We’re gonna have a BBQ next Sunday if you wanna come. It’s entirely up to you, though. No pressure.”

Jensen opened his mouth and closed it again, unsure how to respond because he wanted that more than anything- wanted to reunite with them all so badly, but he knew it would be too soon.

“I’ll think about it.”

Jared nodded, probably having expected a brush-off.

“Offer stands,” he said and gave Jensen a gentle smile. “Jensen?”

“Yeah?”

“Call me if you need anything.”

Jensen nodded and waited until he heard the front door close before he opened the book in his lap and started reading.

Jensen put the book down with shaking fingers.

He wasn’t sure he could read on, but at the same time he wanted, no, _needed_ to read this- needed to understand where Jared was coming from and what emotional turmoil he’d dealt with himself.

Settling back against the pillows with a sigh, Jensen bit his lower lip and forced himself to continue. 

Jensen read the entire twenty-three pages’ worth of Jared’s thoughts and when all was said and done he let the book slip from his fingers and curled up in bed, squeezing his eyes shut to process it all.

He hadn’t known how much he had needed this… how much he had needed to know that Jared was suffering, too- that he was every bit as broken up over what happened as Jensen was.

In a way, it made Jensen realize that there wasn’t a single person on earth right now, who understood Jensen better than Jared did.

No one who could relate to Jensen’s nightmares and flashbacks the way Jared could.

What happened- as terrible as it might have been- connected them on a level that went beyond the physical attraction and ventured into the deeper realm of their souls, linking them together as one.

Jensen sighed and grabbed his phone from the nightstand.

It rang twice before Jared picked up, sounding slightly out of breath. “Jen? You alright?”

Jensen swallowed hard at the thick worry lacing Jared’s words.

There was so much he wanted to say- so much still left unspoken between them- that Jensen didn’t even know where to start.

“So Cecilia, huh?” he huffed out a nervous little laugh. “Sounds like she was a handful.”

Jared was quiet for a long moment, but then he snorted softly into the speaker.

“So here I am, pouring my heart out to you and that’s all you take from it? _Cecilia_?”

Jensen couldn’t help but smile a little, heavy relief fluttering awake in his chest at the response.

“I didn’t know you had a thing for the feisty Latino-lover type.”

“I don’t,” Jared denied with a throaty chuckle. “I have a thing for college kids. You know, glasses, penny loafers, the whole shebang. I like them with freckles and green eyes, too. As an added bonus, if you want.”

“That’s pretty specific for a type,” Jensen huffed out a laugh, chewing on his bottom lip. “It’s gonna be hard to find someone who fits the criteria.”

“Not as hard as you might think,” Jared gave back in a gruff voice. “I might have lucked out.”

Jensen paused at that, the smile slowly bleeding from his face.

“Goodnight, Jay.”

Jared breathed evenly on the other end before answering. “Night, Jen.”

 

  ****

The acceptance letter from Yale came in on Friday afternoon.

Danneel was the first one to start yelling in excitement, Tom just yanked Jensen in for a bruising hug and whispered emotional shit into his ear about how much Jensen deserved it and how happy they were for him.

Misha opened a bottle of sparkling wine and Mike clapped him on the back affectionately and ALL Jensen could think about was _‘I’m going to have to move to New Haven’_ and _‘I’m going to leave all of my friends behind’_.

He was excited, of course.

But his happiness didn’t quite manage to dull the painful realization that his dreams of becoming an artist came at the price of leaving all the people he loved behind.

It was like the letter had made it official, somehow.

Like the clock was now ticking and every time they would sit together and eat pizza on their little couch table, or have lunch together in the dining hall, or fight over who got the first shower, Jensen would always be wistfully aware of the fact that they would part ways soon.

So after an hour of feigned excitement to hide his internal panic, Jensen excused himself and stepped outside into the mild summer breeze, fishing a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket.

He had taken a drag, or maybe two, when a sharp yell from somewhere to his left caught him off guard, nearly causing him to drop his zippo in shock and panic. “Jensen!”

Heart racing, Jensen’s head snapped up to the nearby pathway and he started coughing up a lungful of smoke when he saw Matt jogging up to where he was leaning against the side of Lionel Hall.

Quickly putting his cigarette out (it wasn’t allowed to smoke on the campus and Matt was a stickler for rules) Jensen damn near punched the wall in frustration.

Was that guy following him or something?

How come he always seemed to know where Jensen was?

“I just spotted you on my way back from class,” Matt explained with a jerk of his head towards the east wing of the complex and Jensen gave him an _‘aha’_ look, already trying to think of a way to escape the conversation.

“Yeah, I was actually just about to go to a lecture, so—“

“Oh yeah? Which one?” Matt’s cut him off abruptly, eyes narrowed in skepticism. “I thought you didn’t have lectures on Friday night. It was why we usually went out on Fridays, remember?”

_Fuck._

Busted.

Jensen licked his lips, eyes skirting away and then his shoulders slumped and his eyes fell closed in defeat.

There was no sense in delaying the inevitable.

It was probably better to just get it over with, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

“Alright, look,” Jensen pulled his lighter back out, decidedly ignoring the disapproving look on Matt’s face as he lit up another cigarette and took a long drag. “I’ve been pretty messed up this past couple of months and I needed someone to talk to—“

Matt’s expression softened slightly and he took a step forward. “You know I’m here if you need someone to talk to.”

“Yeah, no. I know that. And I’m thankful for all the times you did, but we took it further than ‘talking’ and I think that was a mistake, Matt.”

Jensen saw the exact second when the words registered with Matt; fully sinking in.

He quickly ventured on, not wanting to drag things out any further.

“I know it’s not fair, but when I slept with you, I did it because I needed the distraction. I needed to feel something other than this- this _constant pain_. But I’m not in love with you, Matt. I never was.”

Jensen sighed, shaking his head. “I was stringing you along and getting your hopes up and I’m sorry for that, I really am.”

“That’s okay,” Matt suddenly said, reaching out to cradle the side of Jensen’s face with an odd, dreamy expression on his face, like he hadn’t listened to a word Jensen had just said.

“Really?” Jensen frowned because he had expected for Matt to be angry;  furious, even.

Especially after his little display of possessiveness the other day.

“Yeah, of course. It’s only normal to be confused after everything you’ve been through.”

Wow. Okay… that went over smoother than expected.

“You’ll get better over time. Eventually, what happened to you will seem like some faraway dream, almost like it never really happened,” Matt’s thumb brushed over Jensen’s cheekbone intimately.

“And then we can move on… start a new life with a house and jobs and a family of our own—“

“Woah,” Jensen let out in a rush, cutting Matt off.

A deep, disturbing sense of unease settled in his stomach and he pushed Matt back with a firm shove to the shoulder.

“Did you not listen to a word I just said? I don’t feel that way about you, Matt. I _never_ did. I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to change. It has nothing to do with what happened to me.”

Matt’s expression fell, lips thinning out and eyes taking on a dark glimmer. “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes I do,” Jensen said in a firm voice, frowning slightly.

He couldn’t have been clearer about any of it, even if he tried.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” Matt repeated with an incredulous, shaky laugh.

He wouldn’t meet Jensen’s eyes as his fingers balled up into fists.

The unsettling feeling in Jensen’s gut grew.

He dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with his Converse; the urge to _leave_ intensifying.

“You’re sick, Matt,” he said calmly, _decidedly_. “And I’m not just talking about the alcoholism, it’s… there’s something seriously wrong with you. I think you might be schizophrenic or—“

“Shut your mouth! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Jensen snorted at the blatant denial. “You’ve all but _forced_ yourself on me the other day when you kissed me in that kitchen. The mood swings, the violent tendencies, the obsessive behavio—“

“I said shut up!” Matt thundered and before Jensen could make a move, he had captured Jensen’s neck in an iron-fisted grip and slammed him against the wall, crushing his windpipe. “You’ve been using me! You’ve been using me to get over that worthless piece of shit and I’ve _let_ you.”

Jensen gasped for air at the impact, clawing at Matt’s unrelenting hand, but he froze when he saw the absolute fury in Matt’s narrowed glare; the threatening sparkle in his bright blue eyes.

“I’ve ignored the way you kept pushing me away, the way you would call out for him in your dreams and even in bed when I touched you.”

“Get off,” Jensen choked out, frantically trying to fend Matt off.

“I thought if only I gave you more time, you’d get over him. That you’d start returning my feelings. That we could start over. But what do I get instead?”

“Take your hands off me, Matt or I swear—”

“I’ve been there for you every step along the way and this is how you repay me? By crawling back into his fucking arms like some cheap fucking trick?!”

Jensen shook his head, opening his mouth in protest and that was when Matt hit him; hand cracking across his face hard enough to cause his head to reel and slam back into the wall behind him.

Black dots started dancing across his vision and Jensen let out a startled gasp of pain.

“Was he worth it, at least?” Matt grimaced, face twisting into a sneer. “Did you at least manage to look him in the eyes when he fucked you? I mean, was he good? Did you _enjoy_ it?”

Something inside of Jensen snapped at the words.

With a growl, he slammed a knee up into Matt’s groin and bodily shoved him away.

Matt stumbled back and Jensen brought his fist around, snapping a sharp right cross at his face.

Matt doubled over with a groan and Jensen pointed a finger at him, breathing heavily through his nose.

“You ever touch me again, you ever so much as come _close_ to me and I’ll get a restraining order.”

Matt spat a glob of blood-flecked spittle to the ground, wiping a hand over his split lip as he straightened back up.

They stared at each other with their eyes wide opened and their chests panting.

Then Jensen washed trembling fingers over his face and closed his eyes.

The skin on his cheek tingled from the force of Matt’s blow and he couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been, putting up with Matt’s bullshit all this time when he had already suspected that the guy was a ticking time bomb; that he had violent tendencies.

“You’re sick, Matt,” he said again, voice trembling and yet firm with decision. “You need help,  _professional_ help.”

Matt’s expression went from livid to broken and vulnerable in one second flat; all the pent-up anger and aggression and the jealousy suddenly draining from his features.

He looked pathetic like that; sprawled on the ground with his eyes ripped wide open in shock and his shaky hand clutched over his rapidly swelling nose.

“Jense—“

"You come after me again and I’ll file a report against you.”

With that, Jensen turned around and dug the car keys from his jacket pocket with shaking fingers.

His head was aching, his heart breaking and there was only one place on earth where he wanted to be right now- only one person he wanted, no, _needed_ to see.

 

 ****

 

Jared opened the door on the third knock, shocked to see Jensen standing on his doormat.

“Jen,” he let out a shocked little breath. “Hey.”

Jensen ducked his head, trying to hide the worst of it, but the second Jared pulled him into the dusty shine of the hallway, he knew it was too late.

“What are you—“ Jared’s voice instantly broke off when he caught sight of Jensen.

“What happened to your face?” he demanded, brows furrowed with worry and anger.

He stepped closer, his hands ghosting over the bruises on Jensen’s jaw and when the warmth of his palms emanated into the sensitive skin, Jensen’s eyes fluttered close for a second.

Jared took the car keys from Jensen’s limp fingers, replacing the cold metal with his own hands and guided Jensen further inside Jeff’s old house, into the messy living room from where they’d been standing in the doorway.

“Sit down,” he led Jensen to the couch. “Don’t touch it. I’ll be right back.”

Jensen didn’t want to be alone, with his thoughts, with this busted face, but he didn’t protest.

Instead, he watched Jared move into the kitchen, heard him rummaging around in the cupboards and flinched at the sound of a creaking faucet.

He sat obediently on Jeff’s ratty couch, knees hugged to his chest as he tried to block out all the words Matt had spat at him before the back of his hand had connected with his face.

His bottom lip had started swelling and the coppery taste of blood still coated his lips and tongue and his jaw hurt almost too much to breathe, let alone talk.

He wondered if his friends had tried to call him yet- if they had checked on him and found Matt outside their dorm building, still sitting on the ground with a haunted expression on his face.

Something cold suddenly got pressed against the side of his face and Jensen was startled, flinching back from the burst of ice against his skin. “Easy, ‘s just me.”

Jared placed a heavy hand on his shoulder and squeezed, drawing his attention back to him, to the dark storm clouds in his hazel eyes.

“Jensen,” Jared said, still holding the bag of frozen corn to his jaw with one palm and cradling the uninjured side of his face with the other, thumb gently tracing the freckled skin.

The tenderness in his touch, coupled with the concern in Jared’s gaze nearly made Jensen cry.

“Tell me what happened,” Jared demanded in a gruff voice, hands shaking with barely repressed anger as he continued to press the bag of frozen vegetables to Jensen’s bruised jaw.

Another second passed in silence and Jared’s patience snapped.

“Give me a fucking name _,"_ he growled and there was no mistaking the threatening undertone in Jared’s voice or the way his shoulders were coiled with tension. 

Jensen swallowed hard and licked the crusted blood from his lips.

“We were talking and then he just…”

He let out an incredulous huff of air, fingers curling by his sides at the memory.

“Matt,” Jared stated.

It wasn’t a question.

Jared’s eyes hardened, his jaw muscle twitching in unmasked fury.

“He hit you,” he said, actually _growling out_ the words. “He fucking hit you.”

He seemed to take Jensen’s silence for a confirmation and the next thing Jensen knew Jared was making a start for the door, every line of his face etched with rage.

“Jared, _no_ ,” Jensen protested weakly, snaking an arm low around Jared’s waist to hold him back because if he let Jared track Matt down for some payback, he wasn’t sure Matt was going to come out of the encounter alive and the last thing they needed was another dead body on their hands.

“He’s got issues, alright? I think it might be a psychotic disorder.”

“I don’t give a shit about his issues!” Jared sneered. “I’m gonna fucking kill him.”

“No!” Jensen grabbed Jared’s arm and held on fast.  “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing? Jensen, have you seen your face?” Jared spun around, knocking Jensen’s hands away. “He fucking split your lip! You’re bleeding— _fuck_!”

Jared whirled around, kicked over his foot against the nearby wall.

“Jay…” Jensen pleaded, his voice cracking over his split lip.

“Has he done it before?” Jared demanded in a low hiss. “Was that why he apologized with the flowers? Because he knocked you around? Beat you up?”

Jensen flinched at the sharpness of his tone. “I had it under control.”

Jared nodded, body twisting away as he huffed out a humorless snort. “Yeah, I can fucking see that.”

Jensen bit his lower lip, “I dealt with it.”

He got up and brushed his hand against Jared's cheek, shivering when he felt the heat of Jared’s breath against his wrist. “It’s over. He’s not going to bother me again.”

The gesture was meant to soothe Jared, but it only seemed to make him angrier, adding gasoline to the raging fire of fury in his eyes. “What else did he do to you?”

“Nothing,” Jensen whispered, eyes burning.

“What _else_ did he do?”

“Nothing.”

“Did he ever touch you against your will?”

“No, alright?” Jensen croaked out, heart racing in his chest. “The two times we fucked, I’m pretty sure I actually wanted it.”

“Pretty sure?” Jared asked, deathly quiet and Jensen instantly knew he’d just fucked up. “You’re _pretty sure_ you wanted it?”

“It’s not like you think. The second time it happened, I was in a bad place. I drank some alcohol, it got out of hand. I can’t remember all of it, but he didn’t _force_ me. It wasn’t… it’s not like he was an abusive asshole from the start, he just—“

“What, he just recently turned into one?” Jared’s voice echoed through the entire living room, loud enough to make Jensen flinch. “Is that to fucking make it better?”

Jensen just sat there with his mouth hanging open and his heart racing in his chest. He just stared up at Jared with that lost, pleading expression in his eyes, hoping against hope that the other man would calm down and see reason.

“Jared, please just—” Jensen pleaded, wrapping a protective arm around his waist. “Let it go.”

Jared stared at Jensen for another second, fists still curled by his side and body loaded with tension.

He looked like he was about ready to _murder_ someone and Jensen knew that with Jared it wasn’t just a metaphor but a very likely description of a possible outcome of tonight.

“Jay…” he whispered and a single tear slid free from the corner of his eyes, painting a clear track into his bruised and blood-flecked skin. “ _Please._ ”

That one word- that gentle plea seemed to do the trick.

Jared deflated and some of the anger bled from his features.

It took a conscious effort from his side to let go of the rage pulsing through his veins, but somehow he managed to do it, shoulders slumping as the fight slowly left his muscles.

He grabbed the washcloth from where he had dropped it earlier and wrung it out before crouching down in front of Jensen and gently lifting his chin and turning it from side to side to assess the damage.

“Jared,” Jensen murmured around the reverent swipe of the damp cloth to his split lip, waiting for Jared to spare some of his concentration from cleaning the cut at the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t.”

Jared’s features were set into a grim line of determination and Jensen knew – he _knew_ – how much it had just cost him to give in to Jensen’s request and not go after Matt after what had happened.

He also knew that Jared would see this as another failure to add to the load of guilt weighing his heart down.

That he would blame himself for having left, even more than before because if he hadn’t taken off, Jensen would have never gone back to Matt in the first place.

“For being here,” Jensen explained softly, curling his fingers around Jared’s wrist and drawing his hand away from his lip. “Thanks for being here.”

They looked at each other until the dark storm clouds in Jared’s hazel eyes started to clear and the hint of affection began to breach the darkness like sunlight.

Then Jared cradled the uninjured side of his face in his broad palm- almost _painfully_ gentle- sliding his fingertips into the soft curls of hair at the base of his neck.

“Of course,” he said and pressed his lips to the unharmed corner of Jensen’s mouth, allowing him to feel the gentle scrape of his beard against the sensitive skin; the flying sparks of electricity that Jensen couldn’t wait to intensify.

Then he pulled away with a soft sigh, tugging a strand of loose hair behind Jensen’s ear. 

“How about you take a hot shower while I fix us something to eat?” he offered softly and Jensen gave him a grateful little nod in return. “Okay.”

Jared vanished out of sight for a few minutes before returning with a fresh set of clothes, including a soft hoodie, a pair of slacks and warm socks.

“Pasta sound good to you?” he asked softly.

Jensen’s throat was all choked up when he answered. “Perfect.”

 

** **

 

An hour and two plates full of food later and Jensen felt like he was going to burst at the seams.

He was filled up with hot food and sated in a way he hadn’t been in almost too long to remember, clutching a glass of red wine as he let lay sprawled across Jared’s leather couch.

“Who taught you to cook like that?” Jensen asked because damn if Jared’s spaghetti sauce hadn’t been the best one he’d ever had.

Jared snorted. “Jeff’s mom was Italian. The guy couldn’t wash a damn plate if his life depended on it, but he knew how to cook. Showed me a thing or two about how to find my way around a kitchen.”

Jensen’s heart clenched in his chest at the way Jared’s voice wavered.

“You must miss him,” he said softly, gaze flickering down to where Jared was sitting on the floor next to the TV station, face cast in shadows and moonlight as he set his own plate aside.

Jensen had never gotten around to actually thanking Jeff for what he had done- for taking the blame for the killings and clearing Jensen of his prosecution.

But not a day had passed since that day in the warehouse where Jeff hadn’t crossed his mind at least once or where he hadn’t been grateful for what Jeff had done for him.

Jared shifted his jaw, gaze still averted and Jensen could see the pain residing in his hazel orbs.

The guilt.

“Have you visited him?” he gently prodded and then swallowed when Jared didn’t immediately offer up an answer in return.

“I just…” Jared cut himself off when his voice wavered and when he looked away, there was no mistaking the glimmer of tears in his eyes. “I’m not even sure he wants to see me after…”

Jensen rolled off the edge of the couch and slid to the floor next to Jared wordlessly, bumping their legs and shoulders together in silent reassurance.

“What makes you say that?” he asked low under his breath.

“I’m the reason he’s in there.”

“No, you’re not,” Jensen denied with a firm shake of his head. “Jeff turned himself in.”

“Yeah but he did it to spare me.”

“No, he did it because he was the one who started all of this, way before you were old enough to even understand it,” Jensen corrected, his voice picking up momentum as he continued. “Lucian killed your mom out of jealousy, Jay. He couldn’t bear the thought of her being with someone else. Jeff knew that. It was him who had personal beef with the guy, you were just a casualty, getting caught up in the crossfire.”

“Don’t try to justify what I’ve done,” Jared bit out from behind clenched teeth.

“Jared… if you want this thing between us to work out, then I can’t be the only one forgiving and forgetting here. You need to start forgiving yourself.”

“Yeah? And how’s that supposed to work out for me, huh?” Jared got up from the ground, turning his back on Jensen and starting to pace the length of the living room.

Jensen sighed, hating to see Jared hurt and yet knowing that Jared had held his emotions off for far too long- that he desperately needed a release for all that pent-up anger and guilt and self-loathing.

“Jared…” Jensen got up from the couch and crossed the room, but Jared backed away almost immediately, twisting his torso around like he couldn’t bear to let someone see him this close to breaking apart.

Jensen stood there for a second, rooted to the spot before he walked over to the little bar in the corner of Jeff’s living room and grabbed a bottle of hard liquor from the wooden shelf on top.

He didn’t bother to grab glasses; just walked back to Jared and shoved the bottle into his chest.

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. There’s a whole shitload of stuff we need to talk about… and apparently, we can’t do it sober. So I say we get hammered and get this over with once and for all.”

Jared’s eyes were shiny and wet as he stared down at Jensen incredulously, one eyebrow raised.

“You can’t seriously think that’s a good idea,” he complained, shaking his head.

Jensen rolled his eyes and uncapped the bottle. “You have a better one?” he challenged before taking his first swig and grimacing as the liquor snaked its way down its throat.

He bared his teeth and sucked in a breath before handing the bottle back to Jared.

Not meeting the other man’s gaze, Jensen shut his eyes and raked his brain for something to start with, something that was bothering him but not badly enough to choke him up or make him cry.

He would hold off on the big stuff until later when he was drunk enough not to remember it the next day or when Jared was too drunk to listen to his pathetic words and explanations.

“Okay, so… after you took off that night, I called Tom and asked him to clear your records.”

Jared gaped at him in shock for a second. “You did what?”

“Nah-ah, you’re not allowed to ask questions. Not yet. First, we drink and get it all out in the open.”

“Jensen…” Jared looked hesitant, but Jensen shook his head firmly, not willing to let this idea go. It was obvious how many unspoken things still hung in the air between them.

Too many things had happened in both of their lives and it had caused a rift to grow between them.

They needed to bridge that gap by telling each other as much as they could; by letting the other in on their minds and opening up their hearts.

“Just do it.”

Resolution settled in Jared’s gaze when he finally lifted the bottle of Whisky to his lips.

He didn’t even wince; just knocked back a good mouthful of the burning liquid, with his eyes still open and fixated on Jensen.

When he lowered it again, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pressed his lips firmly together.

“We burnt down their clubhouse and there was… someone was still inside. I guess we must have missed him when we checked the rooms. I was ready to take off when I heard that fucker screaming and hammering against the door. I went back, saved that fucker’s ass only to realize—” Jared broke himself off and took another swig from the bottle.

Jensen’s heart was in his throat as he listened to the words. He wanted to ask who it had been, why Jared had gone back in the first place, but he had set up the rule about not asking questions himself and he wasn’t about to break it. Jared would tell him when he was ready to do so.

“It was De Marko. Lucian’s right hand. Fucker would have killed his own next of kin for a dime.”

Okay, screw the rule Jensen had invented.

“Did you kill him?”

Jared let out a deep, throaty chuckle but his smile was more of a grimace at the memory.

“I poured battery acid over an open wound in his leg.”

Jensen closed his eyes against a bout of sickness; imagining the kind of damage an action like that would cause- imagining the excruciating pain the guy must have felt- the kind of torture Jared bestowed on him.

“It was after the phone call,” Jared explained in a raspy voice. “When he put that damn cigarette out on your skin and I was forced to listen to your screams.”

Jensen took the bottle back with shaking fingers, his heart giving a tight squeeze at the pain in Jared’s eyes- at the unmistakable horror reflected in his soil colored eyes.

He sank back down to the floor, back propped up against the couch as he took another gulp and forced it down.

“I sneaked into the garage that night because I wanted to look into your financial statements. I had put it all together in my mind- Jeff’s loan and his deal with Lucian but I needed proof. Ty surprised me. I knew that something was off with him the second I saw with that sly grin on his face. He took me down, knocked me out. Next thing I knew, I woke  up in that damn warehouse, trussed up like a turkey.”

“You must have been terrified,” Jared worked his throat, looking anywhere but at Jensen. 

“I was,” Jensen admitted quietly, taking another swig from the bottle before handing it back.

At the rate they were going, they wouldn’t even make it halfway into that terrible night’s events before the damn Whisky was finished, but Jensen supposed by then they’d be too drunk and too high on emotion to care.

“I handcuffed Katie to a pipe. Forced her to stay behind because she had the least experience with the really bad shit. She thought it was because I didn’t trust her enough to pull it off. But I simply wanted her out of dodge.”

Jensen nodded in agreement.

They both knew Katie could hold her own in a fight. But a bar brawl wasn’t the same as an actual firefight or torture session and for all her hard-ass-attitude, Katie would have killed herself over what happened in that warehouse even more if she’d witnessed it firsthand.

“Lucian called me your chosen one,” Jensen huffed out a humorless laugh and boy, was he craving a cigarette right then. He remembered the way Lucian had approached him with that gleeful, predatory glimmer in his eyes like he couldn’t wait to hurt him. “Your _bottom bitch_.”

He spat the words out the way Lucian had said them, disgusted and derogatory.

Jared’s jaw clenched tightly in anger and his fingers curled into fists at the words.

“Then he started talking about my little sister…” Jensen continued and his eyes started watering. He didn’t know if it was the alcohol level at this point or the painful memory of those terrifying minutes in which he had actually thought Lucian had gone after his family. “He’d really done his homework. Knew where she lived, where she goes to school. He said the good looks run in the family.”

Jensen shook his head and swallowed past the lump in his throat.

He could feel Jared’s gaze on him, heavy with sympathy and guilt. “Jen.”

Jensen shook his head, not looking up from the floor. His next words were by far the hardest he’d uttered all night because Jensen hadn’t told anyone this next part, had buried what happened so deep down inside that it was hard for him to drag it all back up to the surface now.

“I was pretty sure he was just trying to fuck with me, you know? But I don’t know, the idea that he could have really gone after her and harmed her in any way, wouldn’t leave me alone so I…” Jensen let out a wet laugh, blinking rapidly. “I called her. In that hospital, one day after you left. I was so, so fucked up and I just… I just needed to hear her voice and make sure she was alright.”

Jared stepped closer and sank down to the floor beside Jensen, brushing their shoulders together in the process. He didn’t offer up any words, knowing they wouldn’t bring any comfort. He just sat there, next to him, shoulders touching and legs loosely bumping together in reassurance.

Jensen drew in a shuddering breath and forced himself to continue.

“She wouldn’t pick up her phone, so I…” a first tear spilled from his eyes and Jensen squeezed them shut, biting his lower lip. “I called my mom, instead.”

Jensen hadn’t told anyone.

Not even Tom.

He had been so brokenhearted after that call, so utterly, emotionally wrecked, that he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to tell anyone. And here Jared was… not saying a goddamn word, and the words just kept spilling from Jensen’s lips, like he held some secret key to his mind and soul.

“Five years. I didn’t talk to any of them in five years,” Jensen explained on a humorless huff of air, more tears breaking free.

God, what he would give to just click his heels and wake up in his childhood bed again, eating dinner with his family, hearing his mother’s laugh or his dad’s proud smile.

“And she hung up on me,” Jensen choked out, his voice nothing but a hoarse whisper. “She didn’t even let me finish. She didn’t care about how I was or why I was calling.”

Jensen looked up at him, then. Eyes wide, and more vulnerable than he had ever seen, all pride stripped away from him, leaving nothing but pain in its wake.

“I’m her son… I’m her goddamn son and she just—“

That was his breaking point.

The bottle of Whisky slipped from Jensen’s fingers as his chest hitched and before he knew it, Jared had somehow wrapped his arms around him and pulled him into his chest.

Jensen went along willingly, practically melting against the taller man’s chest and muffling the full-body sob that pulled at his throat against the side of Jared’s neck.

He curled his fingers into Jared’s shirt and just let go- allowing his body to shake and shudder with his hiccups and gasped breaths.

Jared’s chest was a firm presence against him, his fingers idly tracing the curve of his spine and Jensen could feel his steady heartbeat from where his lips and nose were nuzzling the side of his neck, hovering over his pulse point.

He lost time as he allowed himself to be wrapped up by Jared’s presence.

The last thing he was aware of before his body was fully drained of tears and his eyes had shut down in exhaustion was Jared’s ghosted whisper against the shell of his ear.

“They don’t fucking deserve you.”

 

  ****

Jared didn’t know how or when they’d both fallen asleep that night, but he woke up with a groan and a hangover that felt like it was tearing his head apart.

The bottle of Whisky they’d damn near emptied had spilled the rest of its contents all over Jeff’s living room floor, filling the stuffy air with the sharp odor of hard liquor.

Jared grimaced and straightened up, frowning at the apparent absence of Jensen, when a horrible, retching sound from the room down the hall made his heart skip a beat.

Damn it.

Jared crossed the rotted wood flooring in quick strides and pushed the bathroom door open.

Jensen was kneeling on the grimy tiles, his legs sprawled out on either side of the toilet, his torso curled forward and his head bent dangerously low over the porcelain bowl.

His arms were propped up on the toilet seat, long fingers digging painfully into his scalp and pulling at his sweaty hair as he panted and swallowed reflexively.

“Shit,” Jared breathed out and grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom sink before running it under the faucet a few times. “Why didn’t you wake me? Was it another nightmare?”

Instead of an answer, Jensen heaved again, spitting a yellowish glob of saliva into the toilet bowl.

Bile.

He was throwing up bile because there was nothing else left in his stomach and Jared let out a heavy sigh before squatting down behind Jensen on the floor and sliding the wet washcloth across the younger man’s forehead.

Jensen flinched at the sensation of cold wetness against scalding hot skin and Jared swallowed, wishing that he could somehow take on Jensen’s pain himself and swap places with him.

“Jensen, talk to me. Was it another nightmare?” he pressed, blaming himself for not having woken up the second Jensen had felt some kind of discomfort and eased himself out of his arms.

Who knew how long Jensen had been in here all by himself, shivering against the cold bathroom tiles. The thought made Jared near sick with guilt himself.

“No…” Jensen groaned into the bowl, head sagging as he spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I was okay and then the next second, I just—“ he shook his head, grimacing a little. “I don’t know what brought this on.”

Jared frowned a bit, but it wasn’t too hard to make a connection in his mind between half a bottle of Whisky, three glasses of wine and a raging headache from crying throughout half the night.

“Guess that Whisky wasn’t the greatest idea we’ve ever had.”

Jensen had his eyes closed, but his lips still twitched into a wan smile. “What you mean worse than jumping one another’s bones in that boxing hall?”

“Maybe not worse than that,” Jared snorted and gently dabbed the washcloth against the corners of Jensen’s mouth. “You good to stand up?”

Jared gently helped him up into a standing position, steadying him when he swayed. “You wanna go and get cleaned up while I make some coffee? I can give you a ride home later if you want.”

Jensen nodded his head. “Okay.”

 

** **

 

Their ride home was mostly spent in silence and in an almost eerie way it reminded Jensen of the very first car ride they’d ever been on together after Chad’s accident.

Jared pulled up in the parking lot and twisted around to meet Jensen’s gaze.

“You feelin’ any better?”

They’d needed to stop twice on the way here, with Jensen barely making it out of the car fast enough to continue to retch and dry heave onto the dirty gravel lining the road.

By now, his throat had started aching and he felt like he could go again, one arm protectively curled over his cramping stomach.

“Not really,” he admitted and gulped a few times, eyes squeezed shut where he leaned against the cool window glass on the passenger side.

He flinched when he felt Jared’s fingers at his forehead, checking for a fever. “Alright, you’re the doctor. Are we talking hangover or something worse?”

Jensen leaned into the gentle touch, unwilling to part ways with how miserable he felt.

He swallowed again when saliva gathered in his mouth, feeling another bout of dizziness, even long after the car had stopped moving and he sat rigid in his seat.

“Dunno. I guess I just need to sleep it off.”

Jared sighed. “I hate to leave you like this.”

“It’s Steve’s birthday,” Jensen reasoned, even when every instinct inside of him wanted for Jared to be close- for him to take the pain away and make it better. “You need to be there.”

“I could—“

“Jay,” Jensen protested, shaking his head and then instantly regretting it when a sharp pain shot through his skull at the movement. He grimaced. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just take a nap or something.”

Jared bit his lower lip, still reluctant to let Jensen go. “Jensen, wait. I…”

“What is it?” Jensen’s heart dropped at the ominous tone in Jared’s voice; the alarm bells instantly going off in his head. His mind started racing with possibilities.

What if Jared was leaving again?

What if he had decided that Jensen was too messed up for him to handle?

Too broken? Too pathetic?

What if he had decided that they were better off apart?

“I know you’ve said you needed time and I get it, I do,” Jared started slowly, cautiously. He wasn’t directly meeting Jensen’s gaze and it was unsettling, foreboding that whatever Jared was going to say next, it probably wasn’t anything good. “I know that you still have your doubts about me- about us and whether we can work it all out. To tell you the truth, I have doubts, too. And I’m scared shitless that you might decide that I’ve missed my one shot at having a future with you.”

“Jay…” Jensen sighed, heart aching in his chest.

“But I want you to know that the only thing that could ever make me leave you again, is you. So if you decide that you don’t want this- _us_ -anymore, then I’m gonna respect that decision and—“

“I got an acceptance letter from Yale,” Jensen blurted out before he could stop himself, halting Jared in his tracks. Jared’s mouth was still hanging open, his words trailing off into shocked silence as his eyes slowly widened.

Jensen felt his own frantic heartbeat in his chest; could hear it ringing in his ears.

“I got into Art School. I wanted to tell you last night, but…”

Jared’s expression shifted from shock and excitement to bitter realization and then he nodded, shifting his jaw and looking out the windshield in strained silence.

“How long do you got until graduation?”

Jensen swallowed a few times before answering.

They both heard the real question behind Jared’s words: _How long do we have left before you leave?_

“About four months.”

Hurt flickered in Jared’s gorgeous eyes, bright and unobstructed.

Jensen felt his own throat close up at the idea of losing Jared so soon after he had gotten him back- of losing him right when they’d started bridging the chasm between them.

Jared had family here, he had Jeff and Chris and Chad and the others.

He had a house and a total of twenty-three years’ worth of history- of a past, connected to South Boston. He had only just gotten back and reconnected with the gang who had raised hell to get Jared back into their circle of tight-knit friendship.

And Jensen had nothing to offer but his own brokenness and the weak attempts of reassembling the fractured shards of what used to be their relationship.

“It doesn’t mean that we can’t—“ Jensen cut himself off when his voice started cracking.

Who was he kidding?

They were barely functioning as it was; a long-distance relationship was the last fucking thing they needed right now.

Jared let out a soft breath and idled the engine.

His own hurt was barely masked but Jensen had to give him credit for trying.

“I’m happy for you,” he said and despite the overall crappiness of the situation, Jensen didn’t find a flicker of dishonesty in Jared’s gaze; there was nothing but affection in his eyes. And maybe pride. “You deserve this so much and I’m glad I could help you in whatever way possible. Even if it means we’ll have to—“

Go our separate ways, again.

“Thank you,” Jensen whispered and honestly, Jared had done so much for him lately- had shown him so much sympathy and patience and understanding- so much love- that Jensen wasn’t even sure what he was thanking him for.

“I never had a doubt that they were going to pick you,” Jared said with a sad little smile, like he had known this was going to happen right from the start and it was going to hurt like hell to have to let Jensen go again, but he’d still do it all over again because he wanted for Jensen to be happy.

Jared reached out to gently palm the side of Jensen’s face and leaned over the clutch of Jeff’s old pick-up.

For a horrifying, embarrassing moment, Jensen remembered that he had thrown up three times in the last thirty minutes and that Jared probably shouldn’t kiss him right now, but then Jared’s lips pressed against the center of his forehead in such a caring, tender gesture that Jensen felt a tear slip from his eyes before he could hold it back.

His lips trembled as he squeezed his eyes shut; allowing himself to bask in the soft warmth before Jared pulled back again with a shaky laugh, looking nervous and a bit embarrassed.

“Get some rest, alright?” he prompted gruffly, eyes suspiciously wet in the shine of the lamp posts.

Jensen felt his heart break all over again as he unfurled his legs from the passenger seat and stepped out of the car. “Tell Steve I said hi.”

Jared gave a soft snort and rolled his eyes. “We’ve got four months left, right? You’ll get a fucking chance to tell him yourself.”

Jensen’s lips curved into a smile despite himself.

So this wasn’t quite goodbye, then.

Not yet.

 

  ****

Jensen was a fourteen-year-old, prepubescent girl.

Or at least, that’s what he felt like, thumbing through the pages of the sketchbook Jared had written in not even a week ago and rereading every word over and over again until he had memorized it.

He had gone through two entire boxes of Kleenex and his head was giving him hell from a no-good combination of crying too much and drinking too much and the Radiohead song he had put on replay in his iPod station was a testament to how crappy he felt.

He hadn’t thrown up again, but his stomach was still cramping and his forehead was still tingling with the phantom feeling of Jared’s lips brushing his heated skin.

He couldn’t get the look on Jared’s face out of his head.

Or the words he had said before Jensen had broken the news to him.

_But I want you to know that the only thing that could ever make me leave you again, is you._

_So if you decide that you don’t want this- us- anymore, then I’m gonna respect that decision…_

Was it really Jensen’s decision to make?

It would be crazy for them to just drop everything and move to New Haven together after all the shit that had happened between them. Jared had been gone for nine fucking months. And those months had been the most terrible, most painful months of Jensen’s life.

But he had come back again. And he had tried so hard to show Jensen that he had come to stay.

Where they really supposed to just ignore this magnetic pull between them?

What if Jared was the one person to make Jensen’s life complete?

How would Jensen ever find a sense of normalcy in his new life, if Jared wasn’t right there with him, helping him to cope with the past- holding him through his nightmares- lending him a shoulder to cry on?

A soft knock on the door had Jensen look up in surprise.

“Hey,” Tom was standing in the doorway, expression turning soft with compassion when he saw Jensen’s blotchy face and the blood-shot eyes. “Is it okay if I come in?”

Jensen was about to answer when he saw Danneel and Misha and god- even Mike- hovering in the doorframe behind Tom’s shoulder and trying to see whether the company was appreciated or not.

They must have heard him cry, not that it was a rare occurrence, lately.

Jensen gave a jerky nod and the next second they had all somehow crowded into his personal space and jumped onto his mattress in a tangle of limbs and pillows and blankets.

Danneel wrapped her thin arms around him from behind and Misha bumped their shoulders together in silent reassurance. Tom sat down cross-legged in front of him and Mike dragged his office chair close enough to be able to prop his legs against the mattress.

“You wanna talk about it or just… hang?” Tom gently offered and then frowned when he noticed the purple bruise covering the left side of Jensen’s face.

Jensen caught the flicker of instant rage in his friend’s eyes and quickly shook his head. “It wasn’t Jared. He’d never- he’d never hurt me. Not like that.”

“Then who was it?” Mike asked in a sharp tone, eyes narrowing.

Jensen felt weirdly comforted by their protectiveness.

He didn’t need to actually say the name for them to understand, so he just looked at them in silence, confirming their suspicions about Matt and what he was capable of.

Tom’s features twisted into an angry grimace. “I’m gonna fucking kill the guy—“

“No you won’t,” Jensen sniffed. “I dealt with it. He’s not gonna cause any problems again.”

“Is that why you’re upset?” Danneel gently pushed, resting her chin against his shoulder. "Because of Matt?"

Jensen snorted miserably into his lap and shook his head. “I told Jared about Yale. We only just realized that four months from now, I’ll be gone.”

“So what?” Misha prodded softly. “You’ll only be a few states over. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Maybe not,” Jensen agreed. “But it’s the end of Jared and me.”

“You know, that’s bullshit,” Tom answered with a soft shrug and all eyes suddenly turned on him.

Jensen frowned in confusion, mouth opening in protest but Tom didn’t give him a chance to go on.

“I don’t believe I have to point that out to you, but Jared came all the way from some fucking illegal cage fighting syndicate in Mexico to win you back.  If you think there’s anything- save from the fucking Apocalypse- holding that guy back from moving to a new city with you, you’re wrong.”

“He’s right, you know?” Danneel chimed in. “We’ve all been there on the day he came back and we’ve seen how miserable he was without you. From what I can tell, Jared would follow you to the moon if you’d ask him to.”

“Question is, do you want to be with him or not?” Mike asked softly.

They all stared at Jensen expectantly.

“I…” he swallowed, opening his mouth and then closing it again in indecision.

Jared had broken his heart when he left.

But he had only been back for a few weeks and already, Jensen felt like a huge part of him had been fixed.

It was like Jared knew exactly what to do to comfort or reassure him; like he could somehow see straight into Jensen’s soul and reassemble all the broken pieces of his heart.

Jared completed him in a way that nobody ever could before and Jensen thought that maybe that was part of the reason why his departure had damn near killed Jensen and plunged him into a depression.

To think that he might be losing this again so soon after having won it back? When Jensen finally felt like he was finding back to himself? It made him sick to his stomach.

Letting out a soft sigh, Jensen looked down at Jared’s last entry in the sketchbook.

Yes, Jensen did know.

He thought he might have finally come to understand something

 

** **

 

They celebrated Steve’s twenty-ninth birthday in style.

The party was a riot of colors and loud music, everyone a little more hyped up than they probably should have been.

Sandy and Chase were dancing like they’d forgotten how to stand still and Steve was jamming on the guitar with Chris, their faces wearing matching expressions of comfortable ease.

Katie had found a box of dusty party decorations in Fran’s garage and taken two hours off to turn Jeff’s house into a somewhat suitable location for Steve’s birthday.

Thanks to her, the old backyard had been transformed into an actual garden-like party scene, fully equipped with two benches for seating and a long wooden table with a large birthday cake for show.

There was a colorful picnic rug on the floor and a couple of Chinese lanterns were hanging from the branches, swaying gently in the summer breeze.

“She really outdid herself this time, don’t you think?” Chad grinned as he placed a beef patty and a hot dog on the grill.

The sound of meat sizzling would have made Jared’s mouth water if he hadn’t been so hung up on the fact that Jensen was leaving soon- that he might have lost his one chance at making things right between them when he let Jensen slip out of that car a few hours earlier.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected- for Jensen to join them, maybe, or for him to offer up some kind of plan- anything that didn’t mean they’d part ways once he was leaving for Art School at the end of the year. He didn’t know why the news had packed such a damn blow.

After all, Jensen had absolutely no reason to even _talk_ to him, let alone ask him to come to New Haven with him. And yet here he was, feeling disconnected to his surroundings and pretending that the wetness in his eyes was from all that damn barbecue smoke.

Chad let out a heavy sigh, the fake cheer suddenly slipping from his face. “Jensen not coming?”

Jared shrugged and took a sip from his beer.

“He wasn’t feeling well.”

What else was Jared supposed to say?

How was he going to explain to them that all their carefully crafted plans and attempts at helping to bring Jensen and him back together didn’t take?

That Jensen was about to start a new life away from all of them in spring and that Jared wasn’t going to be part of that life?  That none of them were?

“Hey, grumpy,” Katie suddenly slung an arm around Jared’s waist from behind and got up on her tiptoes to press a peck to the side of his neck. “What are you guys talking about?”

“You, mostly,” Chad quipped without missing a beat and Katie rolled her eyes.

“Steve just fell off the bench. Guy’s already hammered and we haven’t even really _started_ this party yet. How about you go and check on him, while I help Jay with the grill.”

“I like a girl who can handle her meat,” Chad wiggled his eyebrows and Katie flipped him the bird as he walked off towards the fireplace, where Steve was laughing about a joke someone had cracked.

As soon as they were alone, Katie’s face grew serious, her pierced eyebrows knotted in concern.

“Alright, talk, big guy. What’s going on with you?”

“No fucking clue what you’re—“

“Spare me the bullshit, Jay. You’ve barely said two words to any of us all night long. Something’s definitely going on with you and it’s not anything good.”

Sometimes Jared hated his friends for knowing him so well.

“Is it because Jensen didn’t show?” Katie pressed on, never knowing when to give it a rest. “Cause we’ve talked about this and it’s only normal for him to need some time to deal with things. He’s gonna come around, eventual—“

“He’s moving to New Haven in less than five months.”

“Oh,” Katie’s eyes widened and a flicker of unreadable emotion crossed her face. She swallowed hard and then averted her gaze when realization hit her like a punch to the guts. “So he got into Yale. That’s great, I mean it _is_ great, right? Is he… was he happy?”

They had known Jensen was going to leave- _fuck,_ they’d even helped him to make it happen. But maybe they’d all just assumed that by then, Jared would have somehow swept Jensen off his feet and wormed his way back into his heart or something.

They’d all been so naïve- so goddamn stupid to think that there would be an easy fix for what happened. To think Jared would be able to make up for the mistakes he’d made- that he and Jensen could have a second chance.

Jared drained the rest of his beer in one go and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I’m gonna take a piss.”

Subtlety had never been his forte.

He just needed for all of them to give him some fucking space right now.

“Yo, Jaybird!”

“Fuck off,” Jared snapped, footsteps quickening as he made a line for the house, ready to empty Jeff’s bar and pick up where he and Jensen had left off, draining every bit of liquor inside of it.

“Dude, you should really check this ou—“

“Jesus Christ! What’s so fucking important that it can’t wait another goddamn fucking minute?” Jared whirled around, shooting Chris a glare that would have probably stunned him if his attention hadn’t been focused on the rusty, unhinged gate in their garden fence and the person standing there.

And just like that, Jared felt as if all the oxygen left his body and his stomach drop to his feet.

“Hey… I, uh,” Jensen licked his bottom lip, a mix of embarrassment and discomfort crossing his face.

He ducked his head forward with his adorable little trademark blush and lifted a neatly wrapped birthday present up for everyone to see. “I hope it’s not too late to join the party?”

Everybody kind of froze in place for a second; Gen stopped dancing, Chad and Sandy stopped talking and even Steve stopped drunkenly slurring the lyrics to Uriah Heep’s ‘Lady in Black’.

Jared could feel the eyes of the entire gang on him as they waited for his reaction.

He couldn’t fucking breathe.

Here he was, lamenting the loss of a future with Jensen by his side and just then, Jensen appeared in his fucking backyard in ripped jeans and a faded shirt, looking breathtakingly beautiful.

He was _radiant_ and if Jared hadn’t been absolutely, hopelessly in love with the guy as it was, he would have fallen for him all over again at that very moment.

Jensen ran a hand through his spiked hair, ruffling it casually as he cleared his throat.

“Uh… I didn’t mean to intrude or anythin—“

“Jensen!” Katie’s voice cut straight through Jensen’s words and then she charged forward with an impressive speed and threw herself into Jensen’s unsuspecting arms.

Ignoring the way she nearly knocked them both over from the force of the attack, Katie wrapped her skinny little octopus arms around Jensen’s back and buried her face in his neck.

“Oh god. You fucking bastard. You had me so fucking scared.  I thought you weren’t going to— I fucking missed you so much.”

Jensen hugged her back fiercely, cradling the back of her head.

“I missed you too,” he admitted softly and then pulled away with a gentle squeeze to the back of her neck. “I really did.”

He took a stepped further inside the backyard, face dipped in the warm, golden shine of the lanterns hanging from the tree crowns above his head.

Chris jumped up from his seat at the fireplace and yanked him in for a gruff embrace, ruffling his hair and patting his back in such an openly affectionate manner that it had them all speechless for a second. “Fuck, it’s good to see you, kid.”

“Kid?” Jensen snorted out a shaky laugh, even as he dug his fingers into the back of Chris’ back, holding on with all his might. “What happened to ‘college kid’? Flavor of the week? I’m gone for a few months and my old nicknames have been replaced?”

“I think we can cross ‘flavor of the week’ off the list for obvious reasons,” Genevieve supplied with a small smile and pulled Jensen in for a half-sided hug.

“So good to have you back, man,” Steve took her place and pulled Jensen in hard against his chest. “And just so you know? You’ll always be the ‘college kid’ to us.”

_No matter what, no matter when. You’ll always be a part of this family._

_Always._

It wasn’t until Jensen had eased back out of the embrace that Jared dared to step forward from where he’d been frozen in place.

It took two or three strides, not more than that.

Then they were standing toe-to-toe and everything went oddly quiet, like the moment of silence between lightning and thunder.

_One Mississippi… two Mississippi…_

Jared looked at Jensen like he was the only solid thing in a dizzying world- like he was the only thing in color while the rest of the universe was painted black and white.

“Remember when I told you I needed more time?” Jensen asked, eyes glistening in the warm glow of the burning lanterns above their heads.

Jared's heart was pounding madly in his chest, threatening to give out. “Yeah, I do.”

“Well I was thinking and—” Jensen reached up to cradle Jared’s face, thumb gently tracing the mole between his mouth and nose. “Time is overrated.”

“Yeah?” Jared let out a shaky laugh, voice breaking on the word.

Jensen nodded; not a flicker of doubt or hesitation in his gaze when he answered. “Totally.”

There had never been a fucking timeline between them, only their own stupid fears and pride.

Because from the moment Jared had shown up at that goddamn admission office in Yale and set his eyes upon Jensen for the first time in nine fucking months, he had been walking towards this- towards Jensen. Towards a future with Jensen.

And Jensen had walked right back, meeting him halfway.

So Jared thumbed away the wetness on Jensen's cheek, lifted his chin and looked deep into his eyes before he _kissed_ him.

It felt like coming home or being reborn or suddenly finding an entire part of himself that had been missing for way too long.

Jared’s mouth was parting Jensen’s shaking lips, sending wild tremors through his nerves and evoking sensations from him he had never known he was capable of feeling.

He felt like every square inch of his body was dissolving into Jensen’s; his long fingers gripping Jensen’s hair, pulling him impossibly close.

His veins were throbbing and his heart was racing in his chest and Jared had never wanted anyone like this before.

Had never wanted anything more than this right here, _ever._

Jensen’s lips were hot and soft against the bite of liquor on his own and after a moment, Jared pulled back far enough to look in his eyes.

“Come to New Haven with me?” Jensen asked in a shaky voice and Jared’s cheeks actually hurt from how hard he was grinning when he pressed their foreheads together, noses lightly brushing.

“Fuck, yeah,” Jared breathed out.

And then the entire gang erupted into jubilant cheers and cat calls around them.

Steve drunkenly declared that this was the best birthday present ever, and Katie was crying and someone had pulled out their phone and snapped a picture of them, but _none_ of it mattered.

Because this moment was for the two of them, alone.

And Jared was perfectly content just staring down at the dazzling smile Jensen wore in his forest-green eyes and the slight flush coloring his cheeks as his shoulders bobbed in a soft laugh.

He was perfectly content knowing that he might be able to have this- _Jensen_ – for the rest of his fucking life.

“You can go and fuck all the way off, now, guys.”

It was all he managed to say before he bent Jensen’s head across his arm and kissed him again in a way that broke open the sky and stole their breaths and showed them that every other kiss they’ve ever had in their entire lives had been wrong.

Because this right there, this was how it was fucking done.

Jensen was in his arms, and there was an open road stretched indefinitely ahead of them.

And that was all the fucking happy ending Jared could have ever hoped for. 

_Life was good._

_** ** _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess this is it, guys! I still can't quite believe it but this is the final 'official' chapter of this story. There will be an epilogue (it won't be quite chapter-length but it will still be kinda long^^) and then I'll officially open up a round of prompts and requests for timestamps. I want to thank you all SO MUCH for all your amazing support and for sticking with the story so far. You guys are truly amazing. A big Thanks goes out to my beta TheBoys and to ficluv82 for all their wonderful help. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter!! It would be amazing if you could drop me a line or two! Reviews always make me happy <3


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings* for bad language, mpreg, mentions of abortion and mature sexual content. NSFW

** **

** **

 

**Open Road  
Epilogue (Chapter 23)**

_Three months later..._

Jensen was stretched out under the warm comforter with his eyes still closed.

He could tell from the sunlight falling in through the window that he was in danger of running late for his ten o’clock lecture, but for the life of him, he couldn’t find the will to move.

Jared was plastered against his back, his strong arms wrapped protectively around Jensen’s waist.

His lips were pressed to the base of Jensen’s neck, his breath ghosting along the cream colored arch of Jensen’s throat. 

“Morning,” Jared whispered, voice hoarse from lack of use. The rough scratch of his stubble turned Jensen’s soft smile into a lazy grin.

Jensen twisted his face around to level with Jared’s, drowsily staring up into the swirl of honey in his boyfriend’s eyes. “Good morning.”

Jared cupped the side of his face with one palm while tracing the numerous hickeys and love bites on Jensen’s hips with his other. “You’re gonna be late for class.”

“I wonder whose fault that is?” Jensen lightly teased. “I wasn’t the one who wanted to have sex a million times last night. Now I’m gonna limp into my Anatomy lecture, looking like I got mauled in the prison shower.“

Jared shut Jensen up by softly kissing the sensitive area at the base of his neck.

Warmth radiated from the spot where his lips met Jensen’s exposed throat, slowly spreading through his body, blood shooting south as he tilted his head to the side, granting Jared access.

“People are gonna think I’m a slut,” Jensen whined.

“As long as they know that you’re _my_ slut.”

Jensen felt a smoldering heat deep in his guts as Jared’s grip on his middle tightened and the taller man rolled on top of him, pinning him down to the mattress.

He shivered, his body tingling to awareness at the power move, at the way Jared could manhandle him so easily.

Jensen loved to make Jared lose his iron grip on his control.

Sometimes, when he came home after a particularly long group work, smelling off the cologne of another guy in his class or even just mentioning some of his classmates' names, Jared would slam him up against the nearby wall or desk or any available flat surface within reach and show him who he belonged to. And it never stopped being a massive turn-on for Jensen.

They’d been officially back together for almost three months now and every day was just as explosive, just as breathtaking as the previous one, maybe even more so.

They talked about anything and everything, took the Lightning out for hours without exchanging a single fucking word, just enjoying the companionable silence as the wind soared through their hair and the scenery blurred around them.

Sometimes they spent the entire day in Jensen’s bed, kissing until they could no longer feel their lips and eating takeout in their fucking pajamas.

On his few days off from college, Jensen dropped by the garage to hang with the guys and to help Chad with his new design work. Sometimes they’d crash at Jeff’s house for a lazy evening spent in front of the fireplace.

For all their fucked up ways and problems, Jensen didn’t think he’d ever been happier.

A life without Jared seemed unimaginable and with their move to New Haven approaching, Jensen had never been more certain of anything than of his decision to ask Jared to come along with him.

“Stay,” Jared coaxed in a low voice, lips meeting Jensen’s in a searing kiss. His taste was intoxicating and Jensen felt his brains turn to mush at the sound of his voice. “You’re beyond fucking late now, anyway. May as well stay and get your dick sucked.”

The words sent a prickle of heat down Jensen’s spine.

As tempting as the image of Jared with his pink lips wrapped around his dick sounded, Jensen had already missed two lectures this month and he couldn’t really afford to skip out on another one.

“Jay…” he protested weakly, the name ending in a low groan when Jared reached down to cup his ass and give it a possessive squeeze. “I need to—“

“You don’t need shit. You could pass that fucking exam without going to any of the damn lectures and you know it.”

Jensen felt heat rise to his cheeks when Jared started to lick and kiss his way down the expanse of his chest.

“I hope you’re prepared to financially provide for your uneducated artist boyfriend.”

“Oh, I’ll fucking provide for you alright,” Jared said and there was an intensity to his gaze, a flicker of seriousness, even in the midst of their playful joking that made Jensen’s heart clench in his chest.

“There’ll never be a fucking day in your life where I won’t take care of you.”

Jensen’s grin from earlier slowly wilted on his lips and the flicker of happy affection in his gaze turned into something else entirely; eyes flashing dark as his pupils dilated.

“Good to know,” he said breathlessly. “You gonna blow me now, or what?”

Jared smirked before circling Jensen’s dick with his fingers and bending down to suck the throbbing length into his mouth as far as it would go.

Jensen tossed his head back against the pillows, his throat working convulsively as he bucked up into the blissful sensation of wet, velvety suction.

“Jesus fucking Christ,“ he hissed out, zoning out when his gaze traveled down to follow the delicate stretch of Jared’s jaw as he worked up an easy, predictable rhythm.

Jared closed his sinful mouth around the head and sucked, teasing the bundle of nerves at the underside a little with that skillful tongue before he worked his way down, taking Jensen inch by perfect inch until his lips meet his hand where it’s gripping the base.

He held himself there for a few seconds, dark eyelashes fluttering as he watched Jensen with hooded eyes and felt the little tremors in his abdomen from where his forehead was pressed against it.

Then he pulled back just as slowly, dragging his lips back up Jensen’s cock almost teasingly, the sinful friction sending jolts of pleasure down Jensen’s spine. A throaty moan was pulled from Jensen’s throat as he fisted his fingers in Jared’s sweaty strands. His rhythm quickened a bit, not enough for Jensen to come, but enough to make it last a while.

“God, Jay. Your mouth,” Jensen gasped, one of his hands cupping the back of Jared’s head and guiding him forward as he rocked up into the blissful heat.

If Jensen survived the next five minutes, they’d be the greatest fucking five minutes of his life.

He let out a needy little whine when Jared eased off his straining dick and grazed his teeth against the tender inside of his trembling thighs.

Jensen arched his back and rocked his hips forward until Jared slid off of him and hooked Jensen’s legs over his shoulders.

"Gonna fuck you, now," he reached out to slip his thumb between Jensen's pouty lips. “Gonna fuck you so hard you’ll be feeling me for days.”

Jensen moaned around Jared's thumb, color flooding his cheeks at the dirty talk.

“Or better yet,” Jared whispered, slipping his thumb from Jensen’s mouth and smearing saliva over his lips. “You’re gonna fuck yourself on my dick, while I sit back and enjoy the view.”

Jensen’s eyes were hooded; his pupils blown with lust when Jared pulled him into his lap and harshly tangled a fist in his dirty blond spikes, yanking him down for a dirty, open-mouthed kiss.

“You’re gonna ride me ‘til you fucking _collapse_ and you're gonna love every second of it."

Jensen gasped into his mouth when Jared’s thumb caught on his hole, a shudder wracking his spine. “Y-yeah. God, _yes_.”

He was gorgeous like this, flushed, sweaty and damn near  _incoherent_ with want.

Jared surged up to claim Jensen’s lips with a low growl, hot and possessive, and Jensen had never been more grateful to have skipped a class, _ever._

Jared was about to give Jensen a little Anatomy class of his own.

And damn, if he wasn’t the best fucking teacher Jensen had ever had.

 

 

“Wow, someone’s worked up an appetite.”

Jensen helped himself to a third serving of lasagna and moaned around his fork because seriously, this shit was like an orgasm on your tongue.

“Jesus, it’s like you’re having sex with that thing,” Chris grimaced and shook his head with a slightly disturbed look on his face. “I’m starting to get uncomfortable watching you.”

“So don’t fucking watch,” Jensen shot back and made an extra show of licking tomato sauce from his fingers with a moan that bordered on pornographic.

“It’s okay if I watch, right?” Katie gaped at Jensen, jaw hanging open and pupils slightly widened.

Steve quirked an eyebrow at her. “Should I be jealous over you salivating all over him?”

“Should I be jealous over that smudge of tomato sauce?” Katie returned with a genuinely confused expression on her face. “Because I really fucking am. I’m jealous of a fucking vegetable. You proud of yourself, Jensen?”

Jensen laughed and threw his balled up napkin at Katie’s face onto which she chucked a piece of garlic bread at his head.

“Stop it, kids,” Danneel said in fake admonishment and returned from the kitchen, carrying a ceramic dish with homemade apple pie. “Behave, or you won’t get any dessert.”

“Hold on,” Jared leaned in for a lazy kiss, tangling their tongues together for all but a second. He pulled away with a cocky little smirk, wiping at Jensen’s bottom lip with his callous thumb. “You missed a spot.”

Steve groaned at the display. “How do you survive that saccharine lovey-dovey bullshit on a daily basis, Tom?” 

“I’m staying over at Mike’s place most of the time,” Tom shrugged and helped himself to a large piece of pie. “It’s not so much the lovey-dovey stuff that gets to me, as the marathon fucking sessions during the night.”

“Tom!” Jensen exclaimed, heat rising to his cheeks as the rest of the gang traded knowing smirks and broke out in laughter. “That’s not true. We don’t… it’s not that bad.”

“Ok, who am I kidding,” Tom held up a hand like he was about to apologize. “It’s not just during the night. They’re fucking each other pretty much 24/7.”

“Well, where did you think he worked up that appetite?” Chris loaded his plate full with a snort.

“Hey, leave some for the others,” Danneel scolded and then yelped when Chris slung an arm around her waist and pulled her down into his lap.

“Let me go, you dork,” she laughed and swatted at his chest. “Being cute won’t get you more pie.”

“So can we stop talking about our sex life now?” Jensen suggested, his cheeks still glowing.

“I don’t know,” Steve deadpanned. “Can you stop making love to your food?”

“Fuck off, Steve,” Jensen shoved his plate away with a heavy sigh.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was cradling his belly with his hand, a strange warmth pooling low in his stomach as he ran his fingers over the worn fabric of his shirt.

“Hey,” Jared reached out to intertwine their fingers beneath the table. “You okay?”

Blaming the strange gesture on having eaten too much, Jensen decided to shove the thought away and met Jared’s concerned little frown with a private smile of his own.

“Very.”

 

 

Jared fiddled nervously with the twirled cord of the prison phone.

“So uh…” he cleared his throat, sending a scowl at one of the nearby inmates who wouldn’t stop fucking staring at him. “How are you doing?”

He mentally face-palmed himself for the ridiculous question. “Don’t answer that.”

“It’s good to see you,” Jeff’s split lip curled up into a grin. “Took you long enough.”

Jared hung his head, eyes downcast. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me.”

“That’s because you’re a dumbass,” Jeff sighed and ran a hand over his weary features.

Jared would have been here sooner if Jeff hadn’t broken another inmate’s nose during a riot and landed himself in solitary.

But that didn’t change the fact that Jared had been gone for nine months without as much as a fucking word.

Now there was a four-inch wall of bulletproof glass between them and Jeff’s eye socket was surrounded by fading bruises and his lip was still scabbed over from where someone had punched him and none of that was fucking okay.

“I’m sorry,” Jared said, lifting his guilt-filled gaze to meet Jeff’s. “For everything.”

“There is not a goddamn thing you need to feel sorry for,” Jeff said, eyes intense as he stared Jared down. “I’d rather spend my entire life holed up in here than to see you or Jensen in my place.”

“It’s still my fault,” Jared reasoned, thinking back to that night at the warehouse and how his every rational thought had been focused on Jensen, how Jeff hadn’t even crossed his fucking after Jensen had gotten shot.

“No, it’s not,” Jeff denied with a shake of his head. “The only reason why Lucian came after you was to pay you back for the shit that I did. So whatever you’re feeling guilty for, stop it, Jay.”

“But—“

“Shut up and listen to your old man,” Jeff cut him off sternly. “I don’t regret a fucking thing.”

Jared gave his father a rueful smile and slowly shook his head. “Saying that with your face bashed in doesn’t exactly make me feel better, you know?”

Jeff actually grinned at that; sly bastard that he was. “You should see the other guy.”

“God, I fucking missed you,” Jared croaked, voice rough like gravel and eyes glistening.

They were both quiet for a moment after that, but Jared could see it in the way Jeff looked at him almost longingly like he wanted to reach out and yank Jared in for a hug, that the sentiment was returned.

“Tell me you did right by that boy,” Jeff quietly demanded after a beat of strained silence.

“We’re moving to New Haven together in about a month,” Jared answered. “He uh, he got into Yale and asked me to come along so…“

“Good,” Jeff said with a nod. “He’s a keeper you hear me?”

“I know,” Jared licked his lower lip, eyes flickering down into his lap because he knew how much he lucked out with Jensen. “It’s just… he— he almost fucking died because of me, Jeff.”

_How am I supposed to live with that?_

“Make sure it never happens again,” Jeff returned. “Be glad he’s giving you a second chance and show him that you’re worthy of his trust. That’s gonna be your job from now on, Jared. Protecting your family.”

A sad little laugh bubbled up from Jared’s throat and he shook his head. “We’re supposed to move to a new city together. I got no job, no money and a criminal track record from here to New Mexico. Jensen deserves the fucking world and I’m- I’m scared shitless that I might fail him again, Jeff… I just… I feel like I’m grasping at straws here.”

“You think I wasn’t fucking scared to move in with your mother and her four-year-old son?” Jeff asked and looked Jared deep in the eyes. “You’re _supposed_ to be scared because there’s never been more at stake for you before. That’s the price you pay for happiness, boy. The fear of losing it again.”

Jeff sighed and paused for a moment to let the words sink in before he continued.

“You should sell the house. It’s not worth a fortune, but you’ll be able to afford a nice place with it. The rest will start working out for you, once you find a job. You’ve always been a fantastic mechanic, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Jeff, no,” Jared shook his head, heart clenching in his chest at the gesture- at what Jeff was offering and how much it meant. “It’s your house. You’ll need it when you come back.”

“C’mon, Jay,” Jeff snorted. “You and I both know that fucking thing isn’t going to outlast my sentence. Might as well get some money out of it while it’s still standing.”

“But—“

“You can sell that fucking deathtrap of a truck, too. And clear my bank accounts. There’s not a lot on ‘em but it’s a start. All in all, that should give you about two hundred grand.”

Jared’s eyes widened incredulously. “Jeff, that’s really fucking generous of you, but—“

“Take it,” Jeff insisted, his eyes hard and yet affectionate. “You’re gonna need it.”

 

 

 

Sandy was staring at him.

“Do I have something on my face?” Jensen asked, instinctively reaching up to his mouth.

They had gone for a walk with Elle when Jensen had suddenly gotten a strange craving for his favorite Vanilla Bean Blended Crème Frappuccino and dragged them into a nearby Starbucks.

Sandy just kept staring at him in a way that made him squirm uncomfortably in his seat.

“Seriously. You’re starting to freak me out. What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said in an oddly soothing tone like she was talking to a spooked animal. “You just look different today.”

“Different how?” Jensen frowned.

He was wearing jeans and a hand-woven gray pullover.

Not exactly his most flattering outfit.

“Guess I’m just tired,” he shrugged it off, not wanting to dwell on it.

Between his late-night study sessions and _Jared_ , he hadn't really been getting his full eight hours of sleep, lately (not that he was complaining).

Sandy hummed into her own cup of coffee, but Jensen could tell that she looked unconvinced.

“When I say different, I mean the _good_ kind of different. Like you look really good _._ Healthy.”

Jensen’s frown deepened. “Okay… thanks, I guess?”

Sandy grinned and Jensen felt like he was starting to miss out on something really important.

Even hours after, when he was back home and with his nose buried in a textbook, the words still haunted him, clouding his thoughts.

_You look really good. Healthy._

_Alright, you’re the doctor. Are we talking hangover or something worse?_

_Wow, someone’s worked up an appetite._

_You’re still on birth control, right?_

The textbook slipped from Jensen’s grasp and hit the floor with a loud thud.

 

 

When Jared came home that night, the apartment was cast in darkness and the only source of light was coming from the small slit beneath the closed bathroom door.

“Jensen? You in there?” Jared asked with a frown because they never really bothered locking the doors unless Tom or Mike were home.

“Hey, you alright?” Jared pumped a fist against the door. “Answer me.”

Jensen was still prone to getting vicious nightmares and sometimes the cramps in his abdomen from the gunshot wound got so bad that they had him in tears or passing out.

He still sometimes started crying without apparent reason or got that faraway look in his eyes that meant he’d wandered off into the darker corners of his mind.

They both knew how to read the signs when things got bad.

And right now, with the sound of the shower spray hitting the tiles in a steady torrent and no other sign of life coming from Jensen, the alarm bells in Jared’s head grew louder by the second.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Jared took a running start and kicked the door open with as much strength as he could muster.

The lock broke and the door flung wide open, banging against the tiled wall with a loud crash.

Jared’s heart dropped at the sight he was greeted with when he barged into the tiny bathroom.

Jensen was squeezed into the small space between the bathtub and the porcelain sink with his clothes still on while the faucet in the shower was turned on high and beat down a spray of steamy hot rivulets against the white tiles.

The shower curtain was yanked back and the floor was littered with what looked like an entire warehouse supply of used tissue balls.

“Jensen,” Jared said, tone dripping worry. “What’s going on?”

Jensen was curled up into a ball on the floor and Jared hadn’t even gotten a good look at his face yet because he was hiding it with his hands, shoulders quivering with the force of his sobs.

He wasn’t just crying, but bawling; shoulders wracked by full-body shudders and gulping down air and holding it in long swallowed breaths.

“Hey,” Jared’s concerned eyes flashed down over his body, instinctively searching him over for bruises or any other signs of outward damage or injury. “Talk to me. Are you hurt? What the fuck happened?”

Jensen dropped his arms, revealing red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes from what must have been hours of absolute misery.

Jared’s heart plummeted at the sight. “Jesus, what—“

“Don’t hate me.”

The sound of Jensen’s voice, so broken with despair, turned Jared’s blood to ice in his veins.

If he hadn’t already been terrified before, he would have lost his cool then and there.

“Hate you? Jensen, what the hell are you talking about?” he would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation if he weren't so damn near hysterical.

“You’ll hate me,” Jensen croaked out, voice breaking on the words. “And then you’ll leave again.”

Jared’s heart gave a painful squeeze in his chest and he let out an exasperated sigh because as much as it pained him to see Jensen this broken up over the past.

He had lost count over how many times he’d assured Jensen that he was never going to leave him again unless Jensen asked him to.

“That’s what this is about?” he asked in an exasperated rush. “Jensen, we’ve been through this—“

“Impregnant,” Jensen blurted out, the words so rushed they were hard to make out.

Jared’s entire world comes screeching to a halt and whatever he was about to say, instantly died on his lips.

He shook his head, feeling like he was going to cry and vomit all at once.

Had Jensen really just said…?

_No._

_No fucking way._

“Come again?” he asked, blinking slowly.

He didn’t dare to breathe, didn’t think he remembered how to drag oxygen into his lungs.

Jensen lifted his tear-covered face out of his hands just long enough to shoot Jared a glower across the room. “I’m fucking pregnant, okay? Knocked up, Jared.”

“Are you sure?”

Jensen huffed out a wet laugh. “I took five tests. They were all positive.”

“You’re…” Jared sounded absolutely dumbstruck. “But we’ve been careful. We used condoms—“

“The morning after you came back... the gym hall,” Jensen reminded him, wiping angrily at the tears that continued streaming down his face. “We didn’t use protection.”

He looked so fucking broken up over the news, shoulders slumped in absolute defeat and eyes filled with so much sorrow and Jared couldn’t help but think that it should have been different- that he should have been happy when it happened.

That this wasn’t how they’d imagined to start a fucking future together.

“We just got back together after nine fucking months apart! We don’t have a house o-or an apartment for that matter- you were just about to fucking start your new school! You were supposed to graduate— Fuck. FUCK! How are we— what the _fuck_ , Jensen?!”

If anything, Jensen’s expression turned even more heartbroken at Jared’s rant.

“G-gee, I had no fucking clue. Please continue to tell me how I ruined both of our lives.”

“You said you were going to take something!” Jared accused, voice rising with anger and helplessness over their situation because things were- once again- spinning out of control and he wasn’t even sure he was ready to live a normal life outside of the gang, least of all ready to become a father, damn it.

“I can’t remember,” Jensen croaked out, fisting his fingers in his dirty blond spikes and pulling hard. “I took a lot of heavy painkillers and antidepressants at the time. I might have just forgotten, or mixed up the pills or something.“

Jared was close to hyperventilating.

He was bowed in half, clutching the bathroom sink as black spots started dancing across his vision and his legs threatened to give out beneath him.

“I need to get some fresh air.”

“Jared, please—“

_Please don’t leave me._

“I’ll be back,” Jared bit out, even as his legs developed a will of their own and started carrying him out of the steamy bathroom, away from Jensen, away from the life growing inside of him.

He needed his bike and an empty road ahead of him, cool wind soaring through his hair and bursting through his lungs and driving every goddamn rational thought from his mind.

“I’ll be back, I just— I need to…”

_I need to fucking breathe._

If Jensen said anything in return, Jared didn’t hear it.

He was out the door and dry-heaving onto the sidewalk before he knew it.

 

 

 

It took an hour for him to come back.

By then, Jensen had gone through all the different scenarios in his head.

He’d imagined Jared not returning at all, imagined him coming back but declaring that he wanted to break up. Or even worse- that he wanted for Jensen to get an abortion.

He’d cried so hard he’d thrown up and then some more and in all this time, his hand had settled protectively over the non-discernible bump of his belly.

He loved Jared.

Loved him so fucking much it hurt.

But the decision had been clear for him the second he’d seen those damn plusses on the first pregnancy test he’d used.

There was a child growing inside of him and now that he knew it, it all made so much fucking sense.

All this time, he’d been feeling the effects of pregnancy; the morning sickness, the food cravings, the stomach cramps, the way he found himself touching his stomach without consciously realizing it.

God, he’d been so blind to miss these things.

He wasn’t anywhere near ready to become a dad and he didn’t think Jared was either.

But there was absolutely no way that he’d be able to get rid of it.

So when Jared came back and found Jensen in the exact same spot where he’d left him about an hour ago, still with his shoulders slumped and his eyes bloodshot and tears and snot covering his face, Jensen blinked up at him with a spark of broken-hearted determination in his blotchy eyes.

“I won’t get an abortion.”

“You seriously think I’d ask that of you?” Jared shook his head with an incredulous twist of his features as if Jensen had just insulted him in the worst possible way. “You really think that fucking low of me?”

“What am I supposed to think?” Jensen gritted out from behind clenched teeth, anger and hurt bubbling to the surface of his cracked composure. “For all I knew, you could have gone back to Mexico. After all, you have a habit of running off when things get difficult.”

“Don’t you dare,” Jared growled out, his words loud enough to reverberate through the bathroom and send a shockwave of ice down his spine. “For the past three months, I have never left you, no matter how fucking bad it got. I fucking _promised_ you, Jensen. I promised you and then you just fucking assume I’d run off on you when you’re pregnant? Did you not believe a single fucking thing I told you over the past months? Did you not listen to anything I said?”

Jared’s voice caught and broke off and his eyes were glistening now- so full of tears that Jensen could barely stand to look at them.

Jared curled his lips and looked up at the ceiling to hide his pain.

“I know you’ve got issues, Jen. Hell, I got them, too. But if you seriously think I’d leave you hanging like this after _everything_ that’s happened between us, then I—“ Jared broke himself off on a curse, his garbled laugh twisted between hurt and disbelief. “Then I don’t know where that leaves us.”

Jensen just sat there, defeated as every last bit of his composure crumbled.

“I’m sorry, god, I-I’m sorry. I just— I’m scared. I’m really fucking scared, Jay.”

Jared let out a long breath, some of the tension slowly bleeding from his stance.

He closed his eyes and let a few seconds tick by in silence.

“Is there any chance…” he swallowed; jaw muscle clenching and unclenching mechanically as he tried to force the words past shaking lips. “Could it be Matt’s?”

Jensen actually cried a bit harder at that, chest hiccupping for breath because how fucked up were their lives that that was even a possibility? The mere thought made him want to throw up again.

But his irrational surge of momentary panic was quickly quenched as he retraced the events in his mind, ruling out the possibilities.

He had never slept with Matt without protection. Not once.

And on that second night, when he’d been drunk, Jensen went to the pharmacy the next morning, standing in line for the shameful Plan B, just to make absolutely sure nothing could have happened.

“No," Jensen shook his head almost frantically, unable to even stand the thought. "We always used condoms and on that second night I even took the morning-after pill, just in case.”

Jared’s jaw shifted and he looked away as a single tear spilled from his brimming eyes.

And for a hysteric moment, Jensen thought that Jared was disappointed, that some part of him might have hoped that the kid wasn’t his; that someone else was going to take over responsibility for the baby.

But the thought died down as quickly as it had come when Jared turned to face him and there was nothing but plain relief etched into his pained features.

“I thought…” Jared’s voice wavered and died, leaving the unspoken possibilities in the air between them. “I had to ask. The thought that it might be _his_ —“

“Jay,” Jensen croaked out through his own tears. “It’s yours.”

A few seconds passed in tension-filled silence.

Then Jared crouched down on the ground in front of Jensen and pulled him in hard against his chest.

Jensen came willingly, his limbs pliant with exhaustion after hours spent crying and freaking out over the news.

“Please don’t leave me,” Jensen whispered and tangled his fingers in Jared’s leather jacket, tightening his fists in every bit of clothing he could reach. “I can’t do this alone, Jay, I know I messed up, but—“

“This isn’t your fault,” Jared said gruffly before placing his chin on Jensen’s head. “It just happened, alright? We weren’t careful enough and it happened, but we're gonna deal with it, together.”

Jensen’s breath hitched against the column of Jared’s throat.

“I’m twenty-one years old. I’m in school full-time. I got tuition to pay and rent and medical expenses and the little money I got barely covers my own expenses...“

“Don’t worry about the money,” Jared said.

Jensen didn’t know what Jared based this argument on, sensing that there was probably more to that statement than he knew, but he didn’t have the energy to dwell on it.

“I’m gonna lose my spot at Yale.” 

“No you won’t,” Jared said firmly, lips grazing the side of Jensen’s neck. “I could go on paternity leave or you could switch to a part-time program. Either way, you’re gonna go to fucking Art School.”

Jared carded his fingers through Jensen’s hair, brushing from his eyes in a loving gesture.

“So this is really happening, huh?”

"Y-yeah," Jensen’s sob turned into a garbled laugh and his fingers dug a little harder into Jared’s back.

Jared hadn’t said it out loud, but it’s still there in his eyes- the acceptance, the comfort, the fucking happiness despite the bad timing and overall crappiness of the situation.

The reassurance that everything was going to be just fine.

That they would figure something out together.

Jared drew him in for a chaste kiss, so sweet and full of comfort, so full of affection that it managed to somehow quiet down all of Jensen’s fears and worries at once.

“I love you,” Jared said, gazing deep into Jensen’s eyes as if he could stare right through the depth of his ocean green pools and straight into his soul. He leaned in to brush his lips against Jensen’s temple and settled a palm on the non-existent swell of Jensen’s stomach.

“I love you too,” he echoed and covered Jared’s fingers with his own. “So much.”

Relief pulsed through him when Jensen rested his forehead against Jared’s shoulder and let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

Their life had just turned upside down again, their newly-found happiness thrown off course and yet here they were, clinging to each other, comforting each other and moving forward.

Jensen was still scared out of his mind.

But with Jared’s fingers fanned out so delicately against his belly; comforting warmth emanating from one body into the other, he decided to shove his worries and fears aside for the moment and focus on the here and now.

“We’ll figure this out,” Jared said. “You’ll see.”

_Just like we always do._

And strangely enough, despite the gravity of the situation, Jensen realized that they would.

 

 

 

_One month later…_

By any statistical measure, Jensen knew he shouldn’t be on that podium today.

His dad had been an insurance broker and his mom a high school teacher.

Between their middle-range income and three kids, college funds had never really been a topic.

And yet here Jensen was, up on stage, graduating with special honors and as one of the youngest graduates to ever leave Harvard with a doctor title.

To say he was nervous was an understatement of epical proportions.

In fact, Jensen was about a second away from throwing up in front of hundreds of expectant parents and siblings when his name got called out through the microphone by the program director.

“—I’d like to pass you on to our Summa Cum Laude student, Jensen Ackles, who prepared a short speech,” the elderly woman said, signaling that it was his turn to speak.

Jensen’s heart made a leap and his frantic gaze instantly latched onto Jared who sat on the far left side of the tribute, partially hidden behind the crowded audience.

He looked amazing in his black suit, especially with all his glorious tattoos peeking out from beneath the crisp white dress shirt. Jensen hadn’t been able to concentrate on the president’s speech because he’d been so busy staring.

Jared gave him a small, encouraging smile and Jensen took a stance in front of the microphone to rapturous applause.

“Thank you very much,” he said with a shaky smile as the crowd quieted down again. He cleared his throat and fiddled with the microphone. “I was advised to make this brief, so I’ll get right to it.”

Jensen let his gaze travel over the familiar faces sitting in the audience.

Next to Jared sat Tom and Mike, then Chris and Danneel. Chad, Steve and Katie were sitting in the row behind, all dressed up and wearing proud little grins on their faces as they gave him encouraging looks and thumbs-up.

Maybe his flesh-and-blood family couldn’t be bothered to celebrate this special occasion with him, but Jensen wasn’t alone. Not by a long shot.

He was still surrounded by family, still looked upon proudly by the people who loved him.

And that was all that fucking mattered.

“You probably look at me now and think about how young I still am, or how smart I must be to be standing up here. Maybe you think that I’ll give you some advice on how to make the most of your lives. But I’ll be blunt with you. My experience of life is dreadfully limited… it feels like just yesterday that I finished high school and there are about a million people out there, who can give better advice than I can. People who are older, more educated and more experienced than I am… people who have lived life to its fullest, who have hit rock bottom and gotten back up on their feet.”

Jensen looked at Steve and thought to what the older man had taught him about the strength to overcome your own weaknesses and about battling addiction on a daily basis.

That was a true strength, right there.

You didn’t need a doctor title for that because it was in your character- in your soul.

He thought about Chad surviving an accident only to be reunited with his own true love and becoming a doting father- finding new purpose in life.

He thought about Jeff and how he owned up to his mistakes of the past, embracing a fate of his own.

So yeah, maybe Jensen was in the spotlight right now and maybe people thought he was special for graduating from Harvard at age twenty-one.

But the truth was that for all his intelligence, Jensen wouldn’t be standing here today, if it wasn’t for the people who had supported him and backed him up every step of the way.

"I have no business trying to lecture my peers," he continued. "But one thing life has taught me is that people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and each one can be incredibly different from another. That’s why it’s so important to know who you are at heart and to be proud of it.”

Jensen thought of his parents and of the way they had never been satisfied with his achievements.

He thought of the way they had secretly resented him for being so different and tried to make him into something he was not.

“Don’t let anyone change you into something you’re not. Be honest with yourself about the kind of person you are, no matter what anyone else thinks or says about you.”

He looked at Jared again, his gaze and voice softening as a familiar warmth coiled in his chest.

“And whatever happens, don’t let fear hold you back from pursuing your dreams. Don’t try to run from happiness because you think you don’t deserve it or aren’t ready for it. Instead, find out what completes you and hold on to it. Find out what makes you special and do it. I truly believe that if we all follow these simple rules, we can find some measure of happiness in our lives.”

Jensen’s gaze traveled through the audience as he let out a soft breath.

“I wish everyone the greatest luck in that endeavor. Thank you.”

Jensen took his seat and the applause was deafening.

Katie was yelling something decidedly inappropriate and Steve was whistling and Jared had gotten up from his seat with that smug little smile on his gorgeous lips like he was thinking _‘that’s my boy up there’_ and Jensen blushed at his friends’ humbling enthusiasm.

The second the ceremony was over and Jensen had stepped off the podium, Jared was there whirling him around by the shoulders and planting a fierce kiss on his lips in front of the entire crowd.

Jensen was stunned into silence; his eyes fluttering closed as he held on to Jared for dear life.

When they broke apart, Jared was steadying him; one hand firmly pressed against the small of his back, while the other was pressed over the barely-there bump beneath Jensen’s graduation robe.

“You were incredible,” he said, eyes wide and sparkling as they peered at Jensen. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Jensen breathed out against Jared’s lips, their foreheads still intimately pressed together as he allowed himself to melt against Jared’s strong chest.

“You look ridiculously hot in that suit,” he whispered against Jared’s dark blue necktie, closing his eyes against the images of Jared in nothing but that fucking tie, possibly with his hands tied to the bedpost. “It does all kinds of things to me.”

Jared chuckled, probably because these days, it didn’t really matter what Jared wore; anything at all would get Jensen horny. “You know, I could get used to some of the side effects of the pregnancy.”

“It’s the whole ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ look,” Jensen whined as he took in the way the sleek black suit framed Jared’s tall body- black ink glowing dauntingly beneath the pristinely white fabric of his dress shirt. “It’s driving me out of my goddamn mind.”

“Fifty shades of what?” Jared looked puzzled because of fucking course he wouldn’t get that reference. Of all the millions of books he had read, this one, apparently, wasn’t one of them.

“Never mind,” Jensen grinned to himself. “I’ll show you tonight.”

Before Jared got a chance to say anything in return, Danneel’s voice cut through the crowd.

“Congratulations, sweetie!” she exclaimed and pulled Jensen in for a hug.

Katie wasn’t far behind, embracing him with so much enthusiasm that she nearly caused him to lose his footing in the process. “You were amazing!” she gushed excitedly. “Totally rocked that stage.”

“Congrats, man,” Steve cordially clapped him on the back and Chris did the same, wearing a lazy grin on his lips. “You know, we had this awesome plan to get drunk together, but it looks like you’ll have to sit out the booze on this one, Doctor Ackles.”

Jensen groaned. “I fucking hate you, guys.”

Steve laughed and handed him a sloppily wrapped parcel. It looked absolutely atrocious, with a ton of sticky tape keeping the flimsy paper in place and standing off around the edges.

Jensen sighed, but took the present, anyway. “I told you not to get me anything.”

“Just open it."

Jensen ripped the newspaper off until black leather was revealed beneath the wrapping.

His hands stilled and he looked up at his friends with a shocked expression on his face.

“Tell me you didn’t,” he breathed out, before pulling the present out of the torn wrapping paper and unfolding it for closer inspection.

It was an infant leather jacket, complete with a ‘Harley Davidson’ emblem and a silver zipper and buckles in the front.

There was an orange phoenix stitched into the back and an inscription reading ‘Born To Ride’.

“Just look how tiny it is!” Katie cooed, taking it in her hands and admiring it for a moment. “Can you imagine how ridiculously cute it’s going to look wearing his teeny-weeny biker outfit?”

“In case there was ever any doubt about it, you have the official proof now that Katie’s gonna be hella obsessed with your baby and will try to kidnap it at least five times before y’all even leave the damn hospital,” Steve grinned and then chuckled when Katie punched him in the shoulder.

“Thank you guys,” Jensen smiled softly through the sting of tears in his eyes and pulled them in for another round of hugs.

“Just so you know?” Jensen slid his arms up around Jared’s neck and leaned in for a gentle kiss. “Our child won’t be riding any motorized vehicle until he or she is at least  _eighty_.”

Jared laughed against Jensen’s lips and dragged his hand lower, placing it over the soft curve of his stomach.

“We’ll see about that.”

 

**THE END.**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, for now, guys! The first story of the Open Road Verse is finished!!! Thank you all so very much for your continuous support! There are a few more things I’d like to say:
> 
> 1) I’m going to update the community for this verse throughout December. I will upload all the chapters, time stamps and prompt fills over there. If you’re interested, please send me a membership request here: http://onthe-fastlane.livejournal.com/
> 
> 2) Some people have asked me whether they could share the story with friends etc - YES, please share and spread the news!
> 
> 3) Since this story is now officially ended, I’d LOVE for some of you to check in with me one last time. I’ve had readers that have posted reviews religiously and then dropped off the radar and I’m curious to see if they are still hanging in there or if they didn’t like where the story was going. If you’ve enjoyed this, if it made you feel angry or sad or happy or anything at all, it would absolutely make my day if you could spare a second to say hi and share some of your thoughts/opinions with me. As you can probably imagine, writing a story with over 200k words took a lot out of me and any type of interaction with my readers is always highly appreciated! Constructive criticism is welcome too, as long as it's respectful! :) 
> 
> 4) SPECIAL THANKS goes out to my beta TheBoys who helped me so much throughout the entire writing process and continued to be a great source of inspiration. LOVE YOU!
> 
> 5) Last but not least, I’m opening the first official round of requests for the verse, so please feel free to share your requests with me in the comment section of the epilogue. I can’t promise to fill all of them, but I’ll give it my best shot (it might just take me a while). 
> 
> That being said, I want to thank you all one last time!! It’s been an amazing road so far! Let’s keep on riding together ;) Xoxo  
>  


	24. Chapter 24

Hey guys! If you enjoyed OPEN ROAD and you'd like to read more, I just posted the first chapter of the sequel here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11039538/chapters/24607584

Summary: Four years have passed since Jensen and Jared almost lost their lives and each other in the crossfire of a war between the Reapers and the Black Legion. Now they are parents and living the white-picket-fence life in New Haven. But when the past comes back to haunt them, how far are they willing to go to protect the ones they love?


End file.
